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Introducing: Black Box

What’s happening with tens of millions of dollars MS receives to address the opioid epidemic every year? Mississippi Today’s new podcast Black Box has some of the answers.

Introducing: Black Box

Hello! It’s Allen Siegler, Mississippi Today’s mental health reporter. Excited to share that the first two episodes of our newsroom’s first narrative podcast series all about Mississippi’s opioid settlements are in the world.

You can listen to them right now wherever you get podcasts.



Hearing voices of Mississippians either affected by or affecting the state’s devastating addiction crisis is a special experience.

And more episodes drop next week!

Listen, Subscribe, & Share Today

Deep South Today
Introducing Deep South Today’s new narrative podcast featuring special investigations from newsrooms serving our communities. In its first series – Black Box – Mississippi Today mental health reporter Allen Siegler follows the path of Mississippi’s opioid settlement money. After decades of opioid overdoses that ravaged the country, the state of Mississippi is being awarded hundreds of millions of dollars by the very companies that contributed to one of the country’s worst modern public health epidemics. Now, critical questions loom over the cash: Will this money be used in ways that honors the epidemic’s victims? And can the public trust powerful decision-makers across Mississippi to effectively confront the crisis?

Why You Can Trust OPI

The Opioid Policy Institute exists to help communities improve their response to opioid-related death and disease. We provide evidence-based research and analysis that translates complex legal guidance and public health research into practical, usable insights. Our focus is on transparency, accountability, and community healing by increasing access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery supports.

OPI’s analysis reflects a collaborative, team-based approach. We blend real-world and academic experience to help ensure our work is methodologically sound, grounded in evidence, and attentive to real-world implementation challenges. We focus on asking the right questions, surfacing tradeoffs, and helping communities build robust responses to addiction.

Opioid Policy Institute by Jonathan JK Stoltman, PhD is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Jonathan JK Stoltman (PhD)

Jonathan JK Stoltman (PhD)

Jonathan JK Stoltman, PhD is Director of the Opioid Policy Institute. They have been an addiction scientist since 2013. Their work has appeared in leading academic journals and in the media.

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