Birmingham Approves $609,699 in Opioid Settlement Funds for Drug Enforcement Staffing

The Birmingham City Council voted on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to spend $609,699 in opioid settlement money on staffing for the city's drug enforcement team — moving a share of Alabama's abatement dollars toward policing rather than the treatment, prevention and harm-reduction programs Birmingham has funded with the money so far.

The decision places the city at the center of a question playing out in municipalities nationwide: now that the settlement checks have started arriving, who gets to spend them, and on what?

Where this money comes from

City attorney Nicole King told the council that the $609,699 comes from a $97.6 million settlement with six pharmaceutical supply-chain companies: Associated Pharmacies Inc.; J M Smith Corp.; Louisiana Wholesale Drug Co.; Morris and Dickson Co.; North Carolina Mutual Wholesale Drug Co.; and United Natural Foods Inc. More than 5,000 municipalities stand to receive a share of that case. The vote, the dollar figure and the settlement breakdown were reported by the Birmingham nonprofit newsroom BirminghamWatch.

Birmingham has received about $3.2 million in opioid settlement funds to date, according to city officials — an amount the city says could grow as additional settlements resolve. The council's appropriation will pay for staff to support Birmingham's Drug Nuisance and Abatement Team, which city staff describe as focused on disrupting drug sales and similar illegal activity in residential neighborhoods.

Nationally, the sum reached between U.S., state, local and tribal governments and opioid manufacturers and distributors has climbed to roughly $58.6 billion, tracked by the Opioid Settlement Tracker.

What the city has funded before

Birmingham channeled its early settlement dollars almost entirely into community health programs. The city's Comprehensive Opioid Abatement Program describes a "comprehensive, coordinated and evidence-based approach" to opioid use disorder and overdose, built around education, treatment, prevention, outreach, harm reduction and recovery support — with a stated focus on residents "disproportionately or most impacted by the opioid epidemic." The city notes the crisis has touched all 99 of its neighborhoods.

The awards were made through a competitive solicitation, RFP #2025-001, "Opioid Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services," released in June 2025 with a review and selection process that summer.

In October 2025, the city announced roughly $1.5 million in settlement-funded community investments. Among the awards the city described:

• Cahaba Medical Care — $300,000 to expand medical, behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment for unhoused residents and at-risk adolescents, through a mobile health unit and street medicine team.
• The Lovelady Center — $200,000 to offset costs for client representatives working directly with women affected by substance use disorder.
• Auburn University's Alabama Cooperative Extension System — $200,000 for a peer-led prevention curriculum in Birmingham City Schools.
• Alabama Appleseed — $100,000 for reentry services and case management for people returning from the Alabama Department of Corrections, connecting them with housing, employment and treatment.
• Firehouse Ministries — $100,000 for a trauma-informed program to reduce opioid-related overdoses and deaths among people experiencing homelessness.

The city also funded $320,000 for full-time licensed University of Alabama at Birmingham social workers in Birmingham Public Libraries, automated external defibrillators for area libraries and police vehicles ($451,329), and Narcan for Birmingham Fire and Rescue Services ($55,963).

"These investments reflect our deep commitment to healing and restoring our community," Mayor Randall L. Woodfin said when the community awards were announced. "The opioid crisis has touched nearly every neighborhood in Birmingham. By partnering with trusted organizations already doing the work, we're ensuring that resources reach those most in need — from youth in our schools to individuals living on our streets."

Impact: a national debate over enforcement vs. treatment

Settlement dollars carry few strings on how they must be spent, and KFF Health News has been documenting the resulting debate, tracking how state and local governments "use — or misuse — the cash." Manufacturers and distributors are paying more than $54 billion in restitution, and oversight varies widely from one jurisdiction to the next.

That leaves cities to choose among very different strategies. Programs like Cahaba's street-medicine unit, naloxone distribution, medications for opioid use disorder, and recovery housing are designed to prevent deaths. Enforcement staffing is aimed instead at the open-air drug markets that neighborhoods often complain about — a visible, quickly measurable win for residents, but one that does not directly lower the overdose-death count.

For Birmingham, the practical effect of the Oct. 6 vote is that a portion of a limited, one-time pool of money that would otherwise fund clinical and community services is now directed toward the city's drug enforcement payroll. Because settlement payments are finite and generally taper over time, how each dollar is allocated tends to be a durable choice rather than something easily revisited year to year.

What's next

The approved funding lets the city hire staff for the Drug Nuisance and Abatement Team; the council's action did not specify clinical or harm-reduction spending alongside it. Birmingham's total settlement receipts could still increase as more cases resolve, which the city says could open the door to additional programming.

Residents who want to know how their share is being spent can watch the city's abatement program page and council legislation, where individual appropriations and any future request-for-proposals rounds are posted. Alabama's statewide abatement funds are distributed through the state's settlement framework, with local governments receiving their own shares.

Where to get help

• SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information (English and Spanish).
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988.
• FindTreatment.gov — search for licensed treatment, including buprenorphine and methadone providers.
• In an emergency — call 911. Naloxone (Narcan) reverses opioid overdose and is available at many pharmacies and through community harm-reduction programs without a prescription.