In 2023, Guilford County signed on to the NC Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) as a part of the NC Opioid Settlements to access opioid settlement funds. As a result of the settlement, Guilford County will receive $40,750,701 over an 18-year period from 2022 to 2038 to support evidence-based strategies to address the opioid epidemic. (North Carolina Opioid Settlements, 2024. Please note: the amounts listed here could change in the future if more opioid-related litigation occurs).

As a part of this MOA, Guilford County engaged in collaborative strategic planning and the creation of an official plan of specific strategies to which the county will dedicate opioid dollars (Guilford County, 2024). Click here to see the proposed plan.

To date, allocated funds have supported the following strategies: 

Community engagement and education: GCDHHS’s Drug and Injury Prevention program:

• Hosted the Guilford Overdose Prevention and Education Collective (GOPEC). 
• Provided community education and outreach about substance use and overdose.
• Shared information about local resources and helped make those connections.
• Assisted in strategic planning efforts for opioid settlement funds.
• Distributed overdose prevention supplies such as Naloxone and test strips for xylazine and fentanyl. 
• Hired a full time Drug and Injury Prevention Health Educator, Gloria Brown, in early 2025 to provide community education about harm reduction, overdose prevention and resources available for behavioral health and substance use disorders.

Harm Reduction: Partnered with organizations like Guilford County Solution to the Opioid Problem (GCSTOP) to initiate and expand programs that prevent overdose death and reduce the spread of communicable diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV. Programs include: 

• A Syringe Service program which distributes naloxone and sterile use supplies to people who use drugs (PWUD).
• A justice-involved program that provides support and resource connections to people being released from the local jails.
• A Post Overdose Response Team which reaches out to people 24-48 hours after an overdose to offer support and resources.
• A low barrier clinic which provides Suboxone (a medication to treat opioid use disorder) free of cost to patients.

Residential treatment: Provided funds to:

• Relocate and expand the current Daymark residential drug treatment facility to a site on Lee’s Chapel Road in Greensboro.
• Renovate the old vacated Daymark site to be a residential treatment facility focusing on pregnant and parenting women. Women with children under the age of 12 will be able to obtain in-patient drug treatment while their children live with them on site.

Click here for more information on the Guilford County Settlement updates and tracking.