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How Pender County used opioid settlement money to purchase DARE-branded sheriff's office vehicles

The Pender County Law Enforcement Center, a low brick building framed by magnolia trees, on a sunny day.
Nikolai Mather
/
WHQR
The Pender County law enforcement center.

Last month, the Pender County Board of Commissioners voted to spend $125,000 on two new vehicles for the Pender County Sheriff's Office. They're using federal opioid settlement funding — earmarked for fighting the drug epidemic in Pender County — to cover the costs.

Last year, the Pender County Health Department was tasked with perhaps its biggest project yet: combat the opioid crisis using $1.5 million.

The office had been charged with distributing $1,450,327 to local organizations fighting the opioid epidemic in Pender County. Over the next two decades, Pender County — along with thousands of small towns and counties across the United States — will receive millions of dollars from drug manufacturers and sellers. That money is earmarked for resolving the drug crisis that has ravaged rural America.

But in Pender County, a portion of that money will be used to buy two new law enforcement vehicles. On May 20, Health Department Director Carolyn Moser presented a purchase request from the Pender County Sheriff's Office for vehicles to be used by officers leading up the DARE program in Pender County. And though the county commission approved the purchase, some are wondering whether DARE should get top priority in the fight against opioids.

Understanding the opioid settlement

The money comes from a landmark legal settlement between dozens of attorneys general, including North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, and the largest opioid manufacturers and distributors in North America, including Johnson & Johnson, CVS, and Walmart. In 2021, those companies agreed to give $26 billion to support opioid addiction prevention and treatment. They'll pay that sum out over the next eighteen years.

The $26 billion will be distributed on a mostly annual basis to states, counties, and municipalities across the United States. Local governments can use that funding to support a wide range of addiction-related services, like recovery services, resources for first responders, and addiction prevention.

Pender County received its first settlement payment in 2022; to date, it has received $1,450,327. The North Carolina Department of Justice predicts that by 2038, Pender County will have secured $6,821,625 in funding.

The money is sorely needed. In 2021 (the most recent year data was made available), 27 people in Pender County died from overdose. In 2022, overdoses led to at least 77 emergency department visits in the county. Addiction specialist and psychiatry professor Robyn Jordan told WHQR that North Carolina across the board has few resources for people actively struggling with opioid addiction. But in rural counties like Pender, she said, the absence is more keenly felt.

"It's not like the urban areas have everything they need. It's just that rural areas have even less," Jordan said. "There's fewer people who are able to offer evidence-based strategies, fewer physicians, fewer specialists. So just generally fewer options for people to access care."

The county commission has the ultimate say over whether an organization receives funding. But the application process is headed up by Moser, who runs the health department. She solicits applications, answers questions about the process, and presents recommendations for funding to the county commission. She told WHQR that the department tried to identify the gaps in Pender County. Her goal was to avoid "duplicating" the services already available.

"We took on trying to learn everything we could about what is available for our residents," she said. "Our priority ended up being early intervention, which I think is very important to all of us."

A white man in a suit speaks at a podium in a small office space, flanked by three other men.
Vince Winkel
Attorney General Josh Stein was one of the dozens of state attorneys who secured the opioid settlement.

"Naturally gravitated"

On March 11, the county commission voted to allocate $634,883 of opioid settlement funding to the Pender County Sheriff Office. That money will bring DARE to Pender County Schools. The plan is to hire two officers to teach DARE curriculum to fifth graders at Pender County's eight elementary schools for the next three years. It'll also be used to purchase DARE T-shirts, pencils, and other merchandise.

Sheriff Alan Cutler told WHQR that DARE requires instructors to be law enforcement officers. Since those instructors will be employed by the Pender County Sheriff's Office, he said, they will also be granted vehicles. So on May 20, the county commission allocated $95,301 of opioid settlement money to purchase a 2024 Jeep Wrangler and a 2024 Ford Mustang. The sheriff's office received an additional $29,699 for title and tags.

Cutler also told WHQR they plan to add custom, DARE-branded wraps to the Mustang and Wrangler.

"You see the DARE cars, they're flashy," Cutler told WHQR. "We try to make them flashy to draw [the students'] attention."

After the first three years are up, the sheriff's office hopes to continue the DARE program using future opioid settlement funds. If the county commission does not renew the program, it's unclear what would happen to the vehicles. Cutler did not say whether or not they'd be repurposed as normal sheriff's vehicles.

"I understand the concern about the money, but I can't think of a better resource to put money into than our youngsters," he said.

Moser recommended the DARE application to the commission back in March. She said the vehicles would help officers connect with kids.

"It's wrapped, so that when they pull up to a school, these kids are just naturally gravitated to the car," she said. "At that young age, they're very impressionable."

Why DARE?

DARE has long been a mainstay in drug abuse education. LAPD officer Glenn Levant created the program in 1983 as a way to both educate students about drugs and improve their relationships with the police. In the years since its inception, numerous studies have shown that the program has had little to no impact on drug abuse or overdose rates.

Cutler told WHQR that the curriculum has since shifted from the "just say no" attitudes of the 80s and more towards a focus on mental health. The effectiveness of the new program remains to be seen. But Cutler believes it's the right step forward.

"'Just say no' is kind of an easy way out," he said. "And it doesn't really work."

DARE is far from the only drug education program on offer in Pender County. PCS director of student services Leanne Radabaugh told WHQR that North Carolina state law mandates education on drug and alcohol abuse. That education starts in kindergarten, with the classes ramping up in middle school and high school. In high school, the curriculum shifts to cover the dangers of drugs and how addiction relates to mental health. That class is mandatory — students have to secure at least one health class credit in order to get their high school diplomas.

Pender County Schools also makes use of other supplemental drug abuse education programs. This year, the county commission also committed $37,200 of opioid funding to develop several anti-drug trainings for middle- to high-school students and their families. Those trainings will feature information on addiction and brain development as well as the health impacts of vaping.

Cutler thinks DARE still has a place in the classroom.

"I have heard those statements, about, you know, 'the DARE program didn't do any good.' But this is the way I look at it: Look where we've gone since the DARE program faded away," Cutler said. "It must have been doing something."

"Putting the cart before the horse"

During the DARE presentation on May 20, commission member Jackie Newton wondered aloud whether the county was "putting the cart before the horse."

"The opioid funding, as I understand it, first and foremost is to aid and assist those folks with drug issues and children with drug issues. And then we drop down to the preventive DARE program and school education program," she said. "We need to be doing more actively for the active, using and at-risk people now."

A screenshot of a Pender County Commission meeting. The screen is split into three parts: the top half is the commission sitting and listening at a dais, the bottom left side is a woman speaking at a podium, and the bottom right side is a Powerpoint presentation on the DARE program in Pender County.
Carolyn Moser (bottom left) speaks at the May 20th Pender County Commission meeting.

The commission is not just funding drug education programs this year. On March 11, the commissioners authorized $656,812 for an addiction intervention team called PORT, or Post-Overdose Response Team, through Coastal Horizons. That team will conduct outreach to those in active addiction and connect them with resources for treatment.

Newton praised PORT during last Monday's meeting. She also asked the health department to explore more options directly impacting those struggling with addiction.

"We're funding plan B projects without providing for those options that could be available for people who are already using, or have children who are already using," she said. "Making those resources available through the Health Department, through EMS, to our law enforcement people that are on the scene there — that's what needs to be happening with these opioids."

She suggested constructing shelters for homeless people — there are none in Pender County — and giving out free Naloxone to Pender County residents.

"How difficult is it gonna be to get some Narcan to be distributed in this county?" she asked Moser.

Bringing Naloxone to Pender County

This isn't the first time Newton has brought up the idea of Naloxone distribution — she has also asked about it at a meeting in March. Naloxone, also called Narcan, is a life-saving opioid inhibitor which stops overdoses. The drug is most effective when used within minutes of an overdose.

Currently, Pender County mandates that first responders — including EMS, sheriff's deputies, and firefighters — carry Naloxone. Pender County Schools allows nurses and SROs to carry Naloxone. Naloxone is also available at most pharmacies for purchase. In North Carolina, over-the-counter Naloxone usually runs between $30 and $50, with some areas seeing even higher prices. Newton has maintained that in a rural county like Pender, widespread civilian access to the drug is crucial.

So far, Pender County has not used any opioid settlement funds to purchase Naloxone. Moser told WHQR that the reason for this is because the county health department, which distributes opioid settlement funding, only received four applications for funding this past year. None of those applicants asked for Naloxone, and the process, she said, depends on who fills out an application.

"I was very surprised that they did not submit a request so that they would have additional funds for Narcan," she said.

When asked why the health department couldn't just submit an application to create a Naloxone distribution program, Moser said she worried that it would make the department look corrupt.

"We have been very hesitant [to create our own programs] because we didn't want to look suspicious," she said. "We didn't want people to feel like there was something behind us receiving funding."

But she supposed it could still be possible.

"The county could, I guess, be one of the applicants," she said. "It's more than just purchasing Narcan and making it available across the county. Someone has to manage that program and be able to find sites that would allow free Narcan to be dispensed… But it could be done, it could be done."

Kelly Hans holds a box of Narcan nasal spray at the county's One-Stop Shop in Austin.
Mitch Legan/WTIU/WFIU News
A box of Naloxone nasal spray. Naloxone, also called Narcan, is a life-saving drug that stops opioid overdoses.

Leaving it to the counties

The opioid settlement is among one of the most ambitious anti-drug projects to ever happen in the United States. NCDOJ spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed told WHQR that Stein and other attorneys general were very methodical with how they designed the distribution of the money.

"It was a really strategic decision for this to go directly to the counties," she said.

In North Carolina, the majority of decision-making power around the opioid settlement funding is deliberately left to individual counties and municipalities. It's partly for practicality's sake — it's easier and quicker for counties to distribute money rather than request it on a case-by-case basis from the state. But Ahmed also said that local lawmakers know better than state lawmakers what their communities need.

"If we were to implement a solution at the state level, we're making the assumption that all counties are experiencing the crisis the same, and that's just not correct," she said.

It's important to note that local governments still have to report how they use the funds. And if local governments were misusing funds, there would still be legal recourse from the state. Steve Mange, who serves as senior counsel to Stein, said it was something that the attorney general's office did consider.

"The hammer is there," Mange told WHQR. "I would just be very surprised if we ever got to that point."

But the DARE car discussion speaks to a tension between local, state, and national approaches to the opioid crisis. Drug abuse education is an option that the opioid settlement funding explicitly names as an important service. Is it more important than emergency overdose treatment? That depends on who's asking and who's answering.

And in Pender County, the frustration over this question — and the waiting game that follows — is palpable.

"Our commissioners, I guess, felt like we were going — not all commissioners — [some thought we] were moving a little slow on this," Moser told WHQR. "But like I said, I really wanted to be very methodical, and know what Pender has and what's needed."

Nikolai Mather is a Report for America corps member from Pittsboro, North Carolina. He covers rural communities in Pender County, Brunswick County and Columbus County. He graduated from UNC Charlotte with degrees in genocide studies and political science. Prior to his work with WHQR, he covered religion in Athens, Georgia and local politics in Charlotte, North Carolina. In his spare time, he likes working on cars and playing the harmonica. You can reach him at nmather@whqr.org.