Building a community for people requesting opioid settlement data
States and cities are getting more than $55 billion from opioid settlements. This money should help end the opioid crisis, but there’s no guarantee it will be spent on things that actually work. The decisions on how to spend this money are often happening behind closed doors and buried in government documents.
You have a right to those records. This money is because of harms to our communities and we deserve to know how it is spent. Every state has a public-records law. We're here to help you find those records with public record requests. These requests are sometimes called FOIAs (freedom of information act). You can ask for the files and the government has to respond. But the process is confusing. The language is technical. People give up.
That's where we come in. The Opioid Policy Institute working with the Data Liberation Project and MuckRock is unlocking powerful FOIA tools and making them available for free for community members working to unlock opioid settlement data. We provide training and technical assistance to help you do it right. All you have to do is signup and join our community!
Why MuckRock? The MuckRock FOIA tool helps people file and track FOIA requests. Normally this tool costs $40 - 100/month. We're making it available to you for FREE.
For our community, the MuckRock FOIA tool offers:
- A prebuilt list of agencies to request information from (or add your own with our help!).
- A readymade, battletested template to request opioid settlement related documents.
- The ability to easily track and reply to requests.
- The ability to receive documents.
- MuckRock technical support if you get stuck.
How the Opioid Settlement Data Liberation process works
Here's how we help you get the documents you're looking for:
You fill out the application form You
Tell us who you are, what state you're in, and what records you're trying to get. Request access!
OPI reviews your request OPI
The Opioid Policy Institute reviews every submission to make sure it is about opioid settlement spending. MuckRock is opening up their platform for free for this project so we have to make sure it is on topic.
OPI approves the application and invites you to onboarding OPI
We set you up with accounts on MuckRock (for filing) and invite you to our required on-boarding call.
You attend mandatory onboarding You
During the mandatory onboarding we will help you set up your MuckRock account and walk you through how to use it. This is also a good opportunity to ask questions. We will provide you with templates and technical assistance to help you craft your first request.
You file your request You
Boom! You file a freedom of information request!
The government responds Government
Waiting ... some back and forth ... Sometimes they say no, and you have to appeal ... sometimes they say it costs money ... We can help you navigate all of it. We do not pay the fees that governments request. This amount varies based on the type of request. We recommend crowdfunding with your community partners or appealing the fee.
You receive the documents! You
You now have the records you requested! It's time to sort through them and make them publicly available for your community. We help you think about how to do this. Pop by office hours for help!
You analyze and share what you found You
This is the real work.Because the MuckRock FOIA tool makes filing the requests so much easier and faster, you can focus on analyzing and sharing what you found. Understanding what the documents actually say can be time consuming and difficult. OPI offers consultation and tools to help you understand what you found and share it with your community.
The OPI team has developed a series of tools to help you understand what you found. You can find them here: OPI Opioid Settlement Sifter.
We recommend developing a strategy to share these findings. This can include creating a newsletter, op-eds, or a website. For newsletter, we recomment Ghost a publishing platform and newsletter tool. For a website, we offer our OPI + NBHRN Opioid Settlement Watch Website Template to help you do create a website to share your findings. Pop by office hours for help!
How OPI & Data Liberation Project Help
We have no funding for this work. So we're very clear about what we can and can't do.
This effort is strictly about opioid settlement spending. That includes government records such as: meeting minutes, contracts, application processes, award decisions, and related audit findings. You can make FOIA requests about other topics, but we can't help you with them and they can't be done through access the access we granted you to MuckRock.
Here's a breakdown of what we do and do not help with:
We will
- Provide FREE access to the MuckRock FOIA platform
- Provide FREE FOIA request templates
- Provide FREE guidance on how to use the MuckRock platform
- Host FREE monthly office hours for live help
- Offer FREE technical assistance on organizing your findings and interpreting the records you receive
We won't
- File requests for you
- Provide legal advice or legal representation
- Fight fee waivers or appeals for you
- Pay document fees (we made the MuckRock tool free for this project, but the government may still have a "document fee")
- Help with non-opioid settlement requests
Ready? Fill out the intake form
To help make this service free for people interested in filing FOIAs related to pioid settlement money, we need to vet people before letting them into this community. With this application, you'll tell us:
- Who you are and how to reach you
- What you want to know about opioid settlement spending, who you want to know about, and why
- Your plan for: document fee payments (we only offer free access to the MuckRock platform to file the FOIAs), filing, sorting, analyzing, and publicizing the info you get.
OPI reviews every submission. If your request fits the project goals, you'll get invited to a mandatory onboarding call. During the call, you'll get onboarded to MuckRock and we'll answer any questions you have.
If you're approved, we'll invite you to a mandatory onboarding call and training.
Writing a good request
A public-records request works better when it's specific. "Everything about opioid money" is too broad. "Every payment, contract, and grant award made from the state's opioid settlement fund between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024" is specific enough for an agency to work with. Don't worry, we'll help you make your request as specific as possible AND we provide a template to make this smooth.
Here are the steps we walk people through:
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Figure out which agency holds the records.
Usually it's the state health department, the attorney general, a county finance office, or an opioid settlement advisory body. The OPI wiki at wiki.opioidpolicy.org has the governance structure for every state and is a crowdsource resouce you can contribute to.
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NOTE: Requests go to one agency at a time.
You can send multiple requests to multiple agencies, but each request goes to one agency at a time. So if you want to know about opioid settlement spending in multiple agencies, you'll need to send multiple requests.
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Use our request template.
This names the records you can request (meeting minutes, payment records, contracts, emails about a specific topic, grant applications). You can customize the template to fit your needs. Give a date range.
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Ask for a fee waiver.
Most states allow fee waivers for requests in the public interest. The MuckRock platform includes fee-waiver language automatically. Ask if you're not sure.
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File it and wait.
State laws have different timelines. Some require a response in 3 business days. Others allow 30 days or more. MuckRock tracks all of this for you.
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Follow up if they miss the deadline.
Agencies often need a nudge. A polite follow-up message referencing the law usually gets things moving. MuckRock has templates. If they don't reply or fully comply, we can help with that too. MuckRock Help
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Sort, analyze, and publicize the documents!
This is the part that makes it matter. Once it's public, others can use it, cite it, and build on it. Our Opioid Policy Institute Opioid Settlement Sifter helps you organize and categorize documents, and our Opioid Policy Institute Opioid Settlement Sifter helps you organize and categorize documents. Download it here: Opioid Settlement Sifter
Videos
Short walkthrough videos will live here as we record them.
Common questions
No. OPI does not charge for screening, onboarding, or technical assistance. Because of our partnership with the Data Liberation Project, MuckRock access is free for people part of this community. It would normally cost $40-100/month or more. If you can donate to either MuckRock or Opioid Policy Institute, please do! Or reach out to have a conversation about how to support this work. Contact us.
NOTE: Agencies sometimes charge a document processing fee for large requests, but we can help you ask for a fee waiver.
It depends.
Before applying you should take some time to plan who you want to make the request from and who is going to help you sort, analyze, and publicize the documents. Planning will probably take a couple of hours but will make things easier later.
Onboarding is a quick 30-60 minute call. Filing your request only takes a few minutes once you're in the tool and using our template. The agency's response can take anywhere from a few days to longer.
The actual sorting, analyzing, and publicizing will take some time too, depending on how many documents you receive and the size of your team.
No. Journalists should visit the MuckRock platform that is designed for journalists and newsrooms. We're happy to help with opioid settlement reporting! Visit Reporting on Addiction or Opioid Policy Institute.
If OPI declines your intake form, we'll send a short note explaining why. The most common reason is that the request is out of scope (not about opioid settlement money) or the plan was insufficient. This project is only about unlocking information about opioid settlement money. You can always apply again with a more focused application or developed plan. If you don't follow that plan when you have access we have the right to remove you from the community.
No catch. Both of our organizations have the tools and expertise to help you get the information you deserve about opioid settlement spending. We're doing this because we believe that the public has a right to know how opioid settlement money is being spent. This money was won because of the harms to the community. We feel strongly that the community deserves to know whether the promise to spend this money well is being kept.
If you're interested in learning more about our work or supporting it, please visit our website at Opioid Policy Institute or Data Liberation Project.
First, that's awesome that you want to file a FOIA, especially if you've never done it before! That's why we spent all this time building this out, to help people just like you! We're creating resources to help you every step of the way and are only an email away if you run into problems. We hope that the how-to videos guide you through the basics. The monthly office hours are another way that we offer support.
We're not lawyers and we can't recommend one for your specific situation. The National Freedom of Information Coalition has resources. State press associations sometimes help. Law school clinics occasionally take FOIA appeals pro bono (for free).
It's not really that different...The Data Liberation Project is the broader project, run out of MuckRock. This work is a partnership with them where the Opioid Policy Institute takes responsibility for community outreach, vetting, and some aspects of support. MuckRock provides the MuckRock-y support that OPI can't provide. Think of this as a door into the Data Liberation Project, but only for opioid settlement spending.
The public documents we helped liberate
As community members file requests and agencies respond, the requests will appear here.
No documents yet, we're just getting started! The first approved requests are going out soon. When records come back, they'll show up here as a live feed.
Monthly office hours
OPI offers office hours every second Wednesday of the month from 12–1pm EST. Bring your questions. We'll talk through your request, your agency, your strategy. Whatever you need.
Book your spot →Who we are.
The Opioid Policy Institute is working on opioid settlement transparency, accountability, and community advocacy. We work across issue areas related to the opioid syndemic including health privacy, treatment access, and harm reduction.
This program is built on methods developed by the Data Liberation Project and MuckRock. They've done this kind of work for years, across many topics. Credit and thanks to Dillon Bergin, who leads the Data Liberation Project.
