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VIDALIA, La. — Concordia Parish Police jurors voted Monday to split the thousands of dollars coming to the parish from a national opioid lawsuit settlement between the local judges’, public defender’s and sheriff’s offices to help with drug cases and treatment options for the parish.

In 2021, four major drug industry companies including Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson agreed with the majority of U.S. states to a $26 billion deal that would settle lawsuits over the national opioid crisis.  Concordia Parish is slated to receive approximately $900,000, or 0.33 percent of the $325 million in Louisiana’s share of the national settlement. The state expects $18 million each year for the next 18 years.

To date, the parish has received approximately $140,000 from the settlement, said Police Jury Secretary-Treasurer Ariella Carter.

Police Juror Genesia Allen made the motion that the sheriff’s office receive 20 percent off the top, in accordance with the law, and that the public defenders and judges’ offices split the remaining funds 50-50. Her motion passed unanimously at Monday’s meeting.

Public Defender Derrick Carson addressed the police jury in August to request that the public defender’s office receive a cut of the funds. “I have 106 open cases dealing with drug problems,” Carson said, adding, “Both judges are in favor of it.”

He came back to the police jury during its regular meeting on Monday to request that they take action.

“I’ve looked into things and what I’ve found is that the opioid funds can only be spent in certain ways with a lot of restrictions on it. I’ve talked to the judge’s office and I don’t know what other entities you guys can spend it on, I just know that my entity is one of them,” Carson said.

Both Louisiana Seventh Judicial District Judges Kathy A. Johnson, Division A, and John Reeves, Division B, addressed the police jury in May to gather their support for a locally housed program that would help local addicts, mental health patients and victims called Northeast Louisiana Substance Abuse, or NELSA.  This 501(c)3 organization provides an array of resources to courts and individuals from individual or group counseling services for mental health patients or battery victims to drug screenings and treatment plans for moderate to severe addicts. The program also provides anger management and batterers intervention, moral recognition and cognitive behavior therapies and more.

However, its closest office is in Catahoula Parish. The judges said the funds would help them provide local treatment options through the NELSA program

“We’ve been trying to send people here (to Catahoula), but so many people here don’t have the transportation,” Johnson said during the May board meeting. “We talked with the sheriff (David Hedrick) and he’s willing to let them use one of his portable buildings out there to meet their clients.”

Carson said Monday that the funds supplied to the public defender’s office would help them provide further support to clients with drug addictions.

“To reiterate the things that we do with individuals who have substance abuse problems in this parish; What I plan on doing is going to help with administrative costs, get additional people within my office to coordinate with substance abuse clinics throughout our region, get their information, help those individuals, get … their insurance lined up with the treatment facilities, work with them through the course of their treatment and then work with the DA and judges to get them back here once they’re out of treatment so we can continue with the process,” he said.

“If they’re sitting in jail, I can’t tell you how much it costs the parish; but if they really do have a substance abuse problem … if they get treatment the lesser the chance that we’ll have to deal with them again. … Whatever prorated share you can give between the entities, I’m asking you all to provide those funds so that we can help take care of the citizens of our parish that truly suffer with this issue. I’m asking the board to take action.”