After joining more than 3,000 cities, counties, and states in suing drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors for their contributions to the opioid crisis, Long Beach will soon see over $780,000 to help prevent deaths related to opioids such as fentanyl, heroin or oxycodone.

Opioid-related deaths in Long Beach soared from 17 in 2017 to 96 in 2021, representing a 465% increase, according to the Long Beach Health Department. There were a total of 230 deaths in Long Beach related to opioids over that five-year period.

The money is coming to Long Beach as a $26 billion nationwide settlement was finalized earlier this year with J&J and distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health. Long Beach will receive a total of approximately $782,117, which it plans to use toward a youth education and prevention campaign in partnership with the Long Beach Unified School District, among other harm reduction efforts, according to the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services.

The city has already received $241,579 from the distributors’ settlement and will receive another payment of $253,887 next year, according to Health Department spokesperson Jennifer Rice Epstein. Another $286,651 is expected from the J&J settlement as well, Epstein said.

Local governments receiving settlement money will have the discretion to decide how to best use the funds, as long as the spending adheres to certain criteria. In California, which is estimated to receive $2.05 billion over the next 18 years, the Department of Health Care Services has outlined that the funds must be used for “activities tied to the ending, reduction or lessening the effects of the opioid epidemic in communities and include prevention, intervention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services.”

The Long Beach Health Department is looking into three core investments, Epstein said in an email to the Post, which include partnering with the LBUSD on an opioid and overdose prevention campaign in schools, increasing access to naloxone and fentanyl test strips in the city and partnering with local nonprofit organizations in their harm reduction efforts.

In a Health Department meeting on Dec. 9, Long Beach Health Department Director Kelly Colopy said that typically this kind of harm-reduction and opioid funding goes to Los Angeles County, not individual cities like Long Beach.

“We’re excited,” Colopy said. “We’ve never had resources to do opioid prevention where the funding comes directly to us.”

Reduction efforts focused on youth are a top priority for the city, and the LBUSD has already started opioid use prevention and education efforts in schools, according to LBUSD spokesperson Chris Eftychiou.

“We recently expanded our substance use counseling services, opening wellness centers at every middle and high school in the school district,” Eftychiou said. “These centers offer general social-emotional support as well as referrals to outside agencies for help with drug dependence and alcohol use.”

The school district offers comprehensive health education starting as early as kindergarten, he said.

This year, the district sent out two communications warning LBUSD parents of the dangers of fentanyl-laced pills in schools, following several overdoses among students in LA County and the death of a 15-year-old girl at Bernstein High School in Hollywood on Sept. 13.

While there is no direct connection to overdoses among LBUSD students, Eftychiou said the district plans to continue with these education efforts in the future.

In LA County, methamphetamine and fentanyl accounted for 56% and 55%, respectively, of all alcohol- and drug-related overdose deaths in 2021, making them the most prevalent drug types reported as a cause of death, according to a report released last month by the county Department of Public Health.

Fentanyl overdose deaths in the county increased from 109 in 2016 to 1,504 in 2021, according to the report. The report also noted that while all age groups had a dramatic rise in fatalities, the rate was greatest among adults aged 26 to 39 and young adults aged 18 to 25, making the need for youth prevention even more urgent.

The California Department of Health Care Services plans to develop an online data portal that will house the expenditure reports for each participating city, and the soft deadline for the 2022-23 State Fiscal Year spending plans is Aug. 31.

A formal plan for Long Beach has not been finalized, but the Health Department anticipates moving forward in early 2023, Epstein said.