At his house in Ellington where John Lally raised his firstborn, he stops beside a wall filled with photos.
鈥淭his is Tim on the guitar,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hese are pictures throughout his life.鈥�
The father chuckled softly, recalling his son Timothy Lally, and his rock band, 鈥淕o Hollywood.鈥� He says he still listens to a recording from a concert his son played in Hartford in 2006.
In the photos, Timothy is smiling. He鈥檚 big on life. He鈥檚 alive.
Lally, a retired emergency room psychiatric nurse, said right after high school, Timothy began experiencing debilitating anxiety and panic attacks. Anti-anxiety medication didn鈥檛 help.
And then 鈥渙ne day someone gave him a Percocet, and he felt so good; he felt so calm. He said: 鈥楧ad, for the first time I could get through the day. My anxiety went away,鈥欌�� Lally recalled. 鈥淵ou can think how tempting that would be then, to do it again the next day.
鈥淏ut as we know, what happens with addiction 鈥� one pill turns into two pills turns into five pills,鈥� Lally said. 鈥淣ext thing you know, he鈥檚 addicted.鈥�
Nearly eight years ago, Timothy .
In another room in his home, Lally pointed to an urn filled with Timothy鈥檚 ashes. It鈥檚 鈥渁 copy of a Jeep Cherokee that Tim had. Tim and his buddies would go through the woods and through mud and they loved driving around in that Jeep. Some of his best times,鈥� Lally said.
Turning loss into service
Today, Lally鈥檚 on the state鈥檚 whose task is to allocate opioid settlement funds in ways that prevent fatal overdoses. Pharmaceutical companies and distributors have paid $72.7 million of the $600 million expected in the next 20 years, following a series of federal lawsuits.
Lally is critical of the committee鈥檚 delays. Already this year, from opioid overdoses in 海角换妻.
鈥淚 was very frustrated from day one,鈥� he said. 鈥淏y state statute, this committee was supposed to have started last October. We never got around to even meeting until six months ago.鈥�
The money is sitting in a special account, but the state鈥檚 been slow to disburse it. It just made its first allocation on Nov. 14, nearly a year after the committee was legislated. And it was for promoting mental health, Narcan, and safer injections.
But there鈥檚 no universal agreement on how the money should be spent.
Some doctors and nurses want more support for maternal health
Megan Smith of the 海角换妻 Hospital Association is on the state鈥檚 settlement committee. She says hospitals are seeking funding for treating substance use disorder in moms and newborns.
鈥淭here is a gap between those who are diagnosed with a substance use disorder, in pregnancy for example, and those who receive treatment,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd so what we hear consistently is really a desire to help, starting probably prior to a person getting pregnant.鈥�
But connecting high-risk patients with everything from social workers to lactation consultants takes time and money, said Dr. Christopher Morosky, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the UConn School of Medicine and an OB-GYN at UConn Health.
鈥淪o it is resource-intense,鈥� he said. 鈥淗owever, the payoff is great. What we find here in this hospital is that when we bring this team around them, they're very successful in their pregnancy, their birth, they go home with their babies, and their babies do very well in their communities.鈥�
Morosky said intervention is important to make sure moms struggling with opioid use disorder stay with their children.
鈥淭hese babies sometimes don't end up back with their families. And that has a real heavy cost to our patients, but also to their babies, and also to the greater society,鈥� Morosky said. 鈥淪o the amount of impact that the dollar spent on focusing on opioid use disorder in pregnancy is really elevated by the impact that it has.鈥�
Towns take different approaches to the money
Different from the state, municipalities are directly paid by pharmaceutical companies and distributors. In 海角换妻, 15% of the overall settlement goes to cities and towns.
How that money is spent is up to individual town committees, and depends upon each town鈥檚 need. And many of them are doing different things with the money.
In Manchester at nightfall this past August on National Overdose Awareness Day, families gathered at Northwest Park to watch a on grief.
After the viewing, Samantha Bell from the handed out . The pouches, purchased with settlement money, can be used to dispose of old prescription pills that people may have lying around the house.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to get them out of the hands of those who could be using them,鈥� Bell said.
Hartford awarded $400,000. Mayor Luke Bronin said the city selected this particular nonprofit because it鈥檚 working to solve three interconnected crises at once 鈥� housing insecurity, substance use disorder and community reentry after incarceration.
But other towns, like New Haven, haven't allocated any of the money to date. So far, New Haven has received $550,000.
Maritza Bond, the city鈥檚 health commissioner and a member of the state disbursement committee, said she wants to be careful with how New Haven spends the money.
鈥淚 want to make sure that when we are disbursing it, we are looking at making sure that it鈥檚 sustainable,鈥� Bond said. 鈥淪o if we鈥檙e going to be allocating funds to external entities, there isn鈥檛 just a one-time allotted amount.鈥�
That takes time.
Meanwhile, the city鈥檚 overdose deaths shot up more than 200% from 2019 to last year.
Once money is spent, tracking it also an issue
The fragmented process of tracking the money doesn鈥檛 make any of this easier. The settlement money doesn鈥檛 come all at once 鈥� and some of it shows up as direct payments to the state, excluding municipalities. Some of it is part of the McKinsey settlement fund, and a part of that has been spent. And this amount is not under the Opioid Settlement Advisory Committee鈥檚 purview.
Christine Minhee, an attorney based in Seattle, founded a national that keeps tabs on best practices.
She says many states, including 海角换妻, aren鈥檛 collecting details about where the opioid settlement money is going exactly 鈥� and that municipal reporting requirements aren鈥檛 enough.
鈥淭hese funding priorities are just so politically stated that it's hard to get to the true nature of what is actually being funded,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t ostensibly does not require recipients to list organizations that are receiving these monies. It does not require recipients to specify exactly which FDA approved drug is being used in any given context.鈥�
Part of the problem, she said, lies in the paperwork.
Cities and towns are required to report on their funding priorities. But some of the paperwork is vague and confusing 鈥� and not all towns know exactly how to fill it all out. That can lead to a lack of clarity on how dollars are spent, she said.
For instance, a doctor asked Minhee how much their state has spent on naloxone, buprenorphine, and methadone, using opioid settlement dollars. But that data does not exist currently, even in 鈥渙ur higher reporting states, the states that are leading the way,鈥� she said.
Minhee said the best reporting data comes from states whose municipalities are clear as to what they can spend the monies on, and use a national settlement to complete their expenditure reports, which North Carolina is doing.
In 海角换妻, the deadline for submitting municipal forms was extended. As Lally explained, 鈥渟ome of them were late, and some towns weren鈥檛 even sure what they were supposed to do or were confused. That is an issue.鈥�
And in some, the funding was delayed because of a technical glitch in bank transfers. Now, all but four of 海角换妻's 169 municipalities have sent in their forms.
Getting money out the door is a challenge. But so is keeping track of it.
Nancy Navaretta, head of the 海角换妻 Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the committee鈥檚 chair, said the group is deeply invested in getting money out to the people who need it the most.
鈥淚 would like to get through this first iteration,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd if we do need to improve the process by which we do this, if we say for next year's report these are the improvements that we want to make, I think we can easily do that.鈥�
The committee wants to be aggressive in getting the dollars out to communities, she said, but members also 鈥渨ant to be very intentional. So what we don't want to happen is to do something that is perceived as not being transparent and have to go backwards.鈥�
Some states have already received criticism in the way they spent their settlement funds.
鈥淚 think the most repugnant examples are probably [U.S. Sen.] Joe Manchin鈥檚 for a personal gubernatorial helicopter [when he was governor],鈥� Minhee said. 鈥淪o we are certainly seeing opioid settlement spending that reminds us of some of the nightmares that we still remember from our big tobacco spending era.鈥�
To Lally, making sure the settlement money gets to the people who urgently need it has become his calling.
As he stands by the urn holding the ashes of his son Timothy, he says the entire committee wants to get this right.
鈥淚 miss him,鈥� he said softly. 鈥淎nd you know when you lose a child, it鈥檚 like A.D. and B.C. 鈥� it鈥檚 like before Tim鈥檚 loss and after Tim鈥檚 loss. The world is just a very different place.
"I try to honor him and his memory through the work I do.鈥�
