QuickTake:

A planned treatment center for opioid addiction in the coastal town is expected to serve at least 30 people immediately and up to 100 people within a year.

Lane County commissioners Tuesday, Sept. 29, accepted a $1.3 million grant from state opioid settlement funds to pay for a clinic in Florence that will treat people for drug addiction.

The grant comes from the Oregon Health Authority and is part of funding the state received from national settlements of class-action lawsuits against painkiller manufacturers and distributors for their role in sparking and fueling the opioid epidemic.

The county anticipates the clinic, called the Florence Treatment Center, would immediately serve at least 30 people in the Florence area. That would grow to 100 people by the end of its first year, a county analysis says. 

“This is absolutely about investing in some infrastructure to stand up some healthcare, but it is so much more that,” said Commissioner Laurie Trieger said, adding that the work prevents homelessness and helps people connect to long-term recovery services and employment.

Trieger is also an appointed member of the 18-member state’ Opioid Settlement Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Board, which is responsible for allocating the state’s share of opioid settlement funds. The board has allocated $114.3 million towards programs that include treatment, prevention, research and recovery across the state.

The clinic will provide medication-assisted treatment through methadone, which reduces opioid craving and withdrawal symptoms. This treatment is not available anywhere along the coast between Coos Bay and Seaside.

The grant will help pay for positions during the clinic’s first two years. Nine full-time staff will include a program manager, two nurses, two qualified mental health professionals and other support staffers. Staffers already in place at the Lane County Treatment Center in Eugene will also work at the clinic on a part-time basis during the start-up phase. 

Lane County Board of Commissioners Chair Ryan Ceniga, whose district includes Florence, said community members asked lots of questions about the project.

“It’s been a tough road but a very rewarding road,” he said. 

The county will renovate a building that was formerly a medical clinic at 4480 Highway 101, in Florence. The county has completed the design development for the project and hopes to put it out for a bid soon and get proposals before the holidays, said Mike Penwell, project manager for the center. The county is hoping to open in July 2027.

As physicians increasingly relied upon prescribed opioids like oxycodone and fentanyl to treat chronic pain, addiction to the drugs grew and became deadly across the United States. In recent years, fentanyl has become a widely used illicit street drug that people obtain from dealers rather than doctors. Dealers also mix fentanyl with other illicit drugs like cocaine.

In response, Oregon policymakers have worked to try to combat the rise of fentanyl in communities. In 2024, state lawmakers passed a bill that allowed counties to set up deflection programs to steer people who face misdemeanor drug possession charges away from the court system and into programs that provide treatment and other services. 

In Oregon, opioid-connected overdose deaths peaked at 1,394 in 2023 and dropped to 1,078 in 2024, according to Oregon Health Authority data.

In Lane County, 98 people died of opioid-related drug overdoses in 2024, down from 164 in 2023, state data show.

Deaths and hospital trips have declined, though overdoses remain a public health concern. In Lane County, people made 209 visits to hospital emergency departments due to opioid overdoses in 2025, state data show. That’s down almost half compared to 2022, when 401 emergency department visits occurred.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.