Nasal Narcan, used to reverse an overdose, stock the inside of Milwaukee County's first harm reduction vending machine. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has been awarded a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to increase access to substance abuse treatment, the agency announced Friday. 

“Making treatment more accessible is important not only for those struggling with substance-use disorder but for public safety as well,” Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement acknowledging the grant. “This grant will allow for more to be done to help fight addiction.”

The Wisconsin DOJ was awarded the grant to implement the Wisconsin Deflection Initiative (WDI). The program aims to connect people struggling with substance use disorders to services before they have a crisis, an overdose or a criminal charge, according to the DOJ. 

Key components of the Wisconsin Deflection Initiative include self-referral and officer intervention programs, active outreach to at-risk individuals, better response to overdose incidents, comprehensive support services and coordination between law enforcement and treatment providers, the Wisconsin DOJ said. 

The program will be implemented across multiple Wisconsin jurisdictions and have a focus on urban, tribal and rural communities.

If programs like the Wisconsin Deflection Initiative lead to fewer people with a substance use disorder entering Wisconsin prisons, it would reduce strain on the state prison system’s programming. As of October, substance use disorder programming for incarcerated people had a waitlist of over 11,500. The Wisconsin Department of Corrections’ website says the agency tries to enroll individuals in programming close to their release date. 

“We would like to be able to serve every single person that we come into contact with at the highest level that they need in terms of intervention and more research,” Alisha Kraus, then-director of program services for adult prisons, said in an article published by PBS Wisconsin in June. “More resources would allow us to do that, more efficiently.” 

In the U.S. in 2022, nearly 108,000 people died from drug-involved overdose, including from illicit or prescription drugs. Drug overdose deaths in the United States have declined since then, but the fight against addiction continues. In Wisconsin, drug overdose deaths declined from 1,828 in 2022 to 1,771 in 2023. 

Funds directed toward fighting addiction in Wisconsin have included opioid settlement money from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. The Oneida Nation in northeast Wisconsin is considering an emphasis on prevention in the spending of $6.5 million in settlement money it estimates it will receive, to be allocated between 2020 and 2037, the Examiner reported last month.