City and county officials throughout the Northeast Indiana area expect their first installment of money from the $26 billion U.S. opioid settlement at the end of October or early November.

The state’s share of the national opioid settlement amounts to more than half a billion dollars.

The settlement and the opioid epidemic were the topics of discussion at the 2022 Northern Indiana Opioid and Mental Health Summit this week. Officials from the Indiana Attorney General’s office, county health departments, mental health and substance abuse providers, regional hospital systems, local and county officials, prosecutors and judges were part of several panels.

Local officials say now the big battle is fentanyl, a drug 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin and is found in nearly every other drug.

But prescription opioids were the greater battle starting in 1999, according to the CDC. Steps were taken by states to limit pill mills where people showed up for opioid prescriptions, but drug overdoses are still reportedly climbing or unchanging.