Cobb given federal grant for opioid abuse program

A federal grant for $897,335 has been awarded to Cobb County to help curtail the opioid crisis.

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners accepted the funds from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, on Oct. 9 for the Fiscal Year 2018 Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-Based Program.

This money will be used to hire a Judicial Program Manager Coordinator and a DA investigator II.

The program aims to reduce opioid abuse and the number of overdose fatalities as well as to mitigate the impacts on crime victims, according to Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds.

“Cobb County has been dramatically and negatively impacted by the opioid crisis,” Reynolds said. “In 2017, Cobb County led the state and other larger counties in the reported number of opioid overdose deaths and saw a 49 percent increase in deaths associated with opioid use over the past two years.”

The grant will be used over a three-year period to:

• develop an Opioid Fatality Review Team.
• establish a case manager to work with arrested drug offenders who do not qualify for Cobb's Drug Treatment Court and provide wrap-around services to families who have lost a loved one due to opioid-related deaths.
• establish an investigator to assist in opioid-related investigations.
• develop a partnership with an accredited research firm, resulting in the first concentrated effort to consolidate research, data and evaluation of police, prosecution and victim service efforts that will provide an accurate and a comprehensive representation of opioid use and deaths in Cobb County - a required component of the funding.
• provide pay and fringe benefits for two new positions.
• provide set up for the new employees and travel and training for project stakeholders.