San Francisco – Today Mayor London N. Breed released the following statement on the news that City Attorney David Chiu and his office have secured $230 million over the course of several years, to include $57 million in the first year, in funding as part of a negotiated settlement with Walgreens.
“I want to congratulate City Attorney David Chiu and his office for their incredible work as part of this groundbreaking lawsuit. Their relentless fight in our national crisis of opioid addiction deserves our thanks and more importantly, will help us to continue our work to address the devastating impacts opioids have had on our City and our Country.
While we are grateful for the funding secured in this lawsuit, it won’t replace the thousands of lives lost to the opioid epidemic that is playing out across our country. Lives are being devastated, particularly with the rise of fentanyl, and cities are being left to respond to what is a generational crisis.
San Francisco has been dealing with the impacts of opioids for years including the need for direct treatment and support for those struggling with addiction. But we’ve also had to deal with associated impacts of opioid addiction such as the need for community ambassadors and other neighborhood support. This funding secured by the City Attorney will help us to maintain and expand key programs in these areas with solutions that we know are working like treatment beds, dual diagnosis beds, abstinence based programming, and transitional housing.
We will incorporate the plans to use this funding in our upcoming budget, which is currently being finalized and must be submitted to the Board of Supervisors by the end of the month. I look forward to working with the Board members on this as part of our overall budget process.”
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