Opioid Settlement Funds

Every city and town has been awarded opioid settlement funds.
In 2024 alone, Massachusetts municipalities received more than $49.7 million as part of nationwide legal agreements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies.

The practice of Social Prescription is being employed in Massachusetts to help mitigate the impacts of the opioid crisis.
In FY25 the Town of Franklin invested a portion of its $230,500 in relief funds to Social Prescription to fuel prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery efforts.

WATCH: Leveraging Arts and Culture for Substance Use Prevention and Recovery, a Mass Municipal Association webinar about how communities can use opioid settlement funds for prevention and recovery services that involve arts and culture, featuring the Town of Franklin. (Get the slide deck.)

You can urge your city/town to invest opioid relief funds in Social Prescription!
We’ve developed a primer to get you started.

Arts and cultural experiences are being prescribed to people in Massachusetts by their doctors/counselors. (This practice is called Social Prescription.)
In 2020 Mass Cultural Council created a social prescription pilot program. By 2024, we launched that into the first statewide social prescribing solution in the U.S. as well as a field guide for communities with a roadmap for doing this work.

Participating in arts and cultural experiences has proven health benefits.
Research shows that engaging in arts and culture can positively influence health by encouraging physical activity, reducing stress and isolation, and helping with the substance recovery process. (We have the receipts!)