Screenshot of Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine during a Statewide Council on Opioid Abatement meeting on Oct. 30, 2024. (Screenshot)
At a meeting of the statewide council overseeing opioid settlement trust funds, a board member referenced published accounts that the DeSantis administration is using settlement money to fund ads urging voters to reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older.
Several news agencies reported last week that the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) allocated nearly $4 million from the Florida opioid settlement trust fund to Strategic Digital Services, a Tallahassee marketing agency, for an educational campaign on the “dangers of marijuana, opioid, and drug use,” specifically directed at Floridian families and youth.
During a virtual meeting of the Statewide Council on Opioid Abatement on Wednesday, Seminole Republican County Commissioner Lee Constantine, a member of the council, referred to what he said was “the elephant in the room” — those news reports that Gov. Ron DeSantis has raided the fund to help pay for television commercials to combat Amendment 3, the proposed constitutional amendment that the governor has gone on a crusade over the past week to try to keep support for the proposal under 60%, the threshold required for it to become Florida law.
“I’m concerned about some of the reports that have been made recently and accusations in some of the newspapers and press concerning the unintended use of these dollars … to educate people on Amendment 3 and being against Amendment 3 in this current election,” Constantine said. “I don’t believe that that was the intended use, nor do I believe it is directly helping abatement on our opioid crisis. I’m not suggesting that it is happening, I don’t know. “
Calling the issue “the elephant in the room,” Constantine added, “To me that is not one of expenditures that should be or one of the uses of the funds that we have from the opioid from the Pharma settlement.”
DeSantis defender
Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma, chairman of the council, replied that he had seen some of those media reports. However, “I had not seen any of those conversations, suggestions, recommendations come to our council here. I had not been consulted in any of those things.”
He then defended DeSantis and other state leaders as dedicated to alleviating the opioid crisis in Florida.
“I think that all of us as board members know that we work with a group of people who are incredibly passionate about saving lives,” he said. “The governor, the first lady, Senate president, speaker of the House, the attorney general, definitely, are wanting to move in a direction to make sure that we’re providing resources that are intended to combat the overprescribing of those people who are responsible for the settlement suits in the first place.”
Lemma went on to say that the opioid council needs to continue to “keep moving forward” regardless whether Amendment 3 passes next week, adding, “There is no effort and action that this board should be politically motivated in any shape or form.”