Opioids are killing older Black men in D.C. at some of the highest rates in the country Black men in their mid-fifties to mid-seventies accounted for nearly 38% of the city’s opioid fatalities in 2022, while only making up about 4% of D.C.’s total population. Abigail Higgins, Colleen Grablick...
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After lawsuit settlements with pharmaceutical companies, D.C. has
millions of dollars to spend on reducing opioid deaths. Over the next 18 years, the city is expected to receive
more than $80 million from the settlements to put toward opioid-use interventions. As of this fall, they’ve used
$14 million, according to the commission established to advise fund distribution.
Chapman was appointed to the D.C. committee established to advise the city on how to spend its opioid settlement dollars, but resigned in frustration at how the funds were being handled, he says. He lobbied unsuccessfully for some of that money to go toward contingency management — a treatment
program that gives financial incentives to patients in exchange for
staying sober. He also wants the city to create a registry for people brought into hospitals when they overdose, so government workers and medical providers can be better equipped to help in the aftermath. Currently, he says it’s a “revolving door,” where patients are often discharged from the emergency department and jail without necessary follow-up care or resources.
And while the increase in dosage caps for buprenorphine is helpful,
Chapman maintains that the city is overlooking clear opportunities to save lives — namely by putting vulnerable patients in stable housing. He often takes it upon himself to pound the pavement, sometimes with members of the OGs, looking for available units his patients might be able to move into. He points to the tens of thousands of vacant properties in the city as proof that there’s just not enough political will to solve a central problem that keeps his patients unhoused and addicted.
“They found $500 million to give to the owner of the Capitals and the Wizards to renovate the basketball arena but they can't find money to house these folks," Chapman says.