Crow Wing County approves $50,000 from opioid-settlement pool to fund jail SUBLOCADE injections, OKs new prevention grants

The Crow Wing County Board of Commissioners on March 25 approved a Blade Opioid Coalition funding request, including a $50,000 allocation the county jail will use to provide SUBLOCADE injections for people with opioid use disorder and to support a new round of prevention, treatment and recovery grants.

The funding request passed on a 5-0 roll-call vote after presentations from coalition members and jail medical staff explaining how the money would be used. Commissioner Lubcke made the motion to approve; Commissioner Barrows seconded. Commissioners Lee, Coring and Franzen voted aye.

The request included two parts: a proposal from the Blade Coalition to run another round of community grants for prevention, intervention and recovery programming, and a $50,000 request to the coalition to pay for SUBLOCADE injections administered inside the jail. Ron Ingram of the Crow Wing County Jail described an offer from Indivior, the SUBLOCADE manufacturer, that if the jail administers the first dose in custody, Indivior will cover the next two community doses. Ingram told the board, “if they can administer the first dose…