New Funding Should Start To Put A Dent In SC Mental Health, Addiction Problems

South Carolina’s budgets for mental health and substance abuse treatment next year will nearly triple from three years ago as a result of welcome state and federal actions. Both Gov. Henry McMaster and President Joe Biden have rightly given these issues a higher priority.

The money should help address some of the most vexing problems, including critical shortages of mental health and drug abuse professionals and the surge in opioid-related deaths. The state registered 876 opioid deaths in 2019 and 1,400 in 2020, and preliminary data for 2021 showed a more than 20% increase, The Post and Courier’s Zharia Jeffries reported. Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have contributed greatly to the increase in deaths here and across the nation.
Most of the new money will come from the federal government, which has asked Congress this year for more than $4 billion for state block grants for mental health, more than double the amount provided in the last appropriation, and for a continuation of the post-pandemic level of funding for substance-abuse block grants, which are now roughly 50% higher than in 2020.

The new federal gun reform law authorizes an additional $2 billion for mental health programs focused on schools and juveniles. That money has not yet been appropriated, but South Carolina will get its proportionate share of these funds.

The Legislature should resist any temptation next year to reduce state funding because of the influx of new federal funding. Given the severity of the problems in both areas, a reduction would be short-sighted and self-defeating.

n addition, South Carolina expects to receive $360 million over the next 18 years in the settlement of lawsuits brought by Attorney General Alan Wilson and other state attorneys general against a number of large drugmakers and distributors that flooded the country with opioids over the past two decades. That number is expected to grow when the settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family is finalized.

Gov. McMaster announced last month that $100 million of these settlement funds will be available this year to help communities throughout the state respond to the opioid crisis, pushing available funding for mental health and substance abuse in the next 12 months to nearly three times the resources available before the pandemic.

He spoke at a news conference June 22 to announce the opioid settlement and introduce a guide to communities on how to apply for opioid settlement funds. The speakers included Mr. Wilson, the heads of the state departments of Health and Environmental Control and of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, and Dick Wilkerson, chairman of the board of the S.C. Institute of Medicine and Public Health.

The institute collaborated with the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services to produce “South Carolina’s Guide to Approved Uses for Investing Opioid Settlement Funds,” a guide for county and municipal officials. The booklet, available on the institute’s website, closely follows the drug agency’s plan for distribution of federal and state funds to fight addiction. For example, it recommends that first responders be widely trained in administering the opioid overdose treatment Narcan and that supplies of the drug, which can prevent overdose deaths, be increased and widely available.

Mental health and opioid addiction are serious problems in South Carolina. There is more to be done to address both issues, including making drug dealers more accountable for overdose deaths, but the additional funding, if spent correctly, is a welcome next step.