Park County is taking its time before distributing funds given via the state as part of a massive, multi-billion-dollar national opioid settlement.

These discussions with community members, especially people involved in prevention, treatment and enforcement of drug issues, are going on while fentanyl issues are continuing to rise.

On one hand, some have argued the county should be disbursing money more quickly to organizations that can help. However, Wendy Morris, Healthy Park County’s community prevention specialist and part of the main group trying to determine how best to use the funds, appreciates the slow and steady approach.

She told Park County Commissioners as much in a recent meeting to update the status of the deliberations.

And County Commission Chair Dossie Overfield said that, based on a recent presentation by Heathy Park County, the fentanyl crisis looks to only get worse, so the $460,000 received and the $76,000-$90,000 expected each year going forward will need to be used to ensure there is enough support available to get us through the coming years.

That’s what Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt would like to see. He said recently that the primary focus is on treatment and recovery, so the most important help for officers who come across people suffering from addiction is to be able to refer them to organizations that can help.

They’ll also receive more testing kits, while there have been some thoughts on a program at the jail to fund prescriptions for people who go to jail to keep them on medications that help in recovery from opioids.

Most of the funds, though, are expected to go toward organizations such as Healthy Park County that focus on prevention, like talking to middle and high school students about the dangers of illicit drugs. As a parent of a middle school student, I very much agree abut the importance of stopping the abuse of drugs at one of the sources — potential future users.

Funds will also go to organizations that help people recover from addiction and help prevent them from slipping back into it.

The crisis may be here, but tackling it is too important to do it in a haphazard way.