Peoria County will receive nearly $4.2 million in opioid settlement money over the next 14 years, and State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos is seeking community input on how those dollars should be spent.
The settlements come from lawsuits the county joined in 2020, alleging major pharmaceutical distributors and drug makers used deceptive practices to increase opioid prescriptions.
“Too many individuals have struggled with opioid addiction, and too many companies chose to do nothing about it,” Hoos said Wednesday during a news conference at the Peoria County Courthouse. “Those companies are now paying a price and we are using their profits to combat the opioid crisis.”
Hoos said Peoria County has already received more than $1.1 million in settlement funds to date.
“The funds have to be used exclusively to combat the opioid crisis in Peoria County, and to help ensure it does not happen again,” she said.
Hoos said her office is currently in talks with the Hult Center for Healthy Living about possibly using some settlement money to educate children about the dangers of addiction before they turn to drugs. She’s interested in fielding other suggestions as well.
“Number one, we wanted the community to be aware of what we have, and number two, what are the ideas that the community has on how we can spend these funds,” Hoos said. “It's a lot of money, and it can be used in a lot of areas.”
The initial purchase out of the settlement money already received is the R1 Learning System app that will be used with people involved with the Peoria County Drug Court.
“This groundbreaking system is designed to deliver increased engagement among participants. It's an easy way to keep them connected and keep them on the right path,” said Hoos, noting the county’s annual contract for the app is about $5,000.
Chief Judge Katherine Gorman of the 10th Judicial Circuit called the county’s commitment to the drug court “a personal point of pride” because her father, former Chief Judge Gorman, helped start the program in the 1990s.
“Decades later, the dedication of the stakeholders to integrate these sorts of advancements will allow for the continued success for those drug participants,” she said.
Jessica Durbin, the deputy director of probation and court services, said the R1 app will be distributed to their problem-solving court staff team, and provided to all clients in the drug court program.
“The app is designed with SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) compliancy, that it provides clinical services in addition to the services they receive in person,” Durbin said. “It goes through different modules as they move through phases in our drug court program, that provides videos that they can watch during certain times (and) then give that feedback to clinical staff on what they observed, what they learned from that.
“It provides the avenue to actually go through group settings, right in the app. It also provides an avenue to talk with drug court staff (or) if they're not available another mentor that's been proven effective through SAMHSA at any time, if they're in need of 24/7 services and assistance.”
Hoos said she made sure Peoria County’s involvement in the litigation against the drug companies came at no additional expense to local taxpayers.
“I chose not to outsource this to save the county money. There were a lot of other counties that hired private law firms to represent them; I knew that would cut into a piece of our pie,” Hoos said. “So I actually took on the work myself. I didn't even have my Civil Division do a lot of it, because I didn't think that would be fair to them.”
Hoos said her office also has had some preliminary discussions with JOLT Harm Reduction regarding potential uses for the additional settlement dollars.
“I would just encourage other organizations that are in this arena – either treatment, prevention, or recovery – to reach out to my office and sit down and we'll discuss if, number one, they would qualify, and then number two, what is their proposal, how much would it be and if it's something that would work,” she said.