{"id":152692,"date":"2026-02-12T06:54:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152692\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:54:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:54:17","slug":"florida-official-acknowledges-opioid-money-funded-anti-weed-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152692\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida official acknowledges opioid money funded anti-weed ads"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE \u2014 For the first time on Wednesday, the DeSantis administration acknowledged that it used opioid settlement money<\/a> to campaign against a recreational marijuana amendment on the 2024 ballot.<\/p>\n

Shevaun Harris, the secretary for Florida\u2019s Agency for Health Care Administration, made the admission during an appearance before a Senate committee as part of her confirmation to the position<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She was quizzed during the hearing about her leadership two years ago at a different agency, the Department of Children and Families, which spent millions on ads warning about the dangers of marijuana in the lead-up to the 2024 election.<\/p>\n

During the campaign, the department paid a Republican-aligned digital media company, Strategic Digital Services, $5.1 million in a no-bid contract for ads about marijuana and abortions. The money for the marijuana ads came from the state opioid settlement.<\/p>\n

The Strategic Digital Services contract was part of more than $35 million in taxpayer money<\/a> the DeSantis administration spent to defeat the amendments, a Times\/Herald investigation found last year.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, a Democrat serving on the Health Policy committee vetting Harris\u2019 appointment, asked Harris on Wednesday to walk the panel \u201cthrough the decision-making process at DCF regarding the launch of this anti-marijuana ad campaign just months before the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris\u2019 response is the first acknowledgment from the DeSantis administration on its use of opioid settlement money. It paid for $4 million of the $5.1 million the department spent. No one from the administration has responded to questions from the Times\/Herald since the news bureau reported the department\u2019s use of the opioid money in fall 2024.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Sentinel<\/a> reported on Sunday that the state hadn\u2019t answered questions about the spending on the campaign from its own opioid advisory council.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the department was allocated funding through the Legislature for the opioid settlement funding, one of the line items was money specifically set aside for a prevention campaign,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe department had a number of different drug classes that we were going to be doing ads on. We started with marijuana, chiefly, because \u2026 we are focused on prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berman asked Harris twice to disclose the extent to which the department worked with the governor\u2019s office on the campaign. Harris didn\u2019t answer the question, but said the department had worked with the vendor, Strategic Digital Services, on other initiatives.<\/p>\n

Harris said the department had seen \u201cnumerous examples where that particular drug is a gateway into other drug use.\u201d She said she had seen infant death reviews where \u201cmoms who had THC in their system rolled over and smothered their child.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cSo, we had extreme cases, where we felt like education was necessary to clear up any confusion or to provide information on the dangers of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis moved Harris last year from the Department of Children and Families to the Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Medicaid. She is up for confirmation as secretary for the second straight year.<\/p>\n

Last year, Harris\u2019 confirmation was held up<\/a> by Sen. Don Gaetz, as the House and the media investigated Hope Florida and a related charity\u2019s role as a pass-through for $10 million<\/a> that went from a state Medicaid settlement to a political committee controlled by DeSantis\u2019 chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Hope Florida was helmed within the Department of Children and Families. And records show the Agency for Health Care Administration led the negotiations that resulted in Medicaid contractor Centene <\/a>paying $10 million from a $67 million agreement to the Hope Florida Foundation.<\/p>\n

The Health Policy panel gave Harris the nod of approval on Wednesday, and Gaetz, who sits on the panel, voted for Harris\u2019 confirmation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had the opportunity to work with the secretary on legislation,\u201d Gaetz, a Pensacola Republican, said before voting. \u201cI find her responsive. I find her intelligent and truthful and extremely willing to help and work with the Legislature. I\u2019ll be voting in favor of the secretary\u2019s confirmation enthusiastically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaetz\u2019s Ethics and Elections committee determines which confirmations will appear before the full Senate for a vote. His support indicates Harris\u2019 confirmation is likely to go through this year, allowing her to remain in the post overseeing the Medicaid agency.<\/p>\n

Times\/Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Romy Ellenbogen contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE \u2014 For the first time on Wednesday, the DeSantis administration acknowledged that it used opioid settlement money…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30739,28,30,29,7659,21249,64188,73689,24427,73688,12190,71622],"class_list":{"0":"post-152692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-confirmation","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-marijuana","13":"tag-recreational-marijuana","14":"tag-senate-committee","15":"tag-settlement-money","16":"tag-shevaun-harris","17":"tag-strategic-digital-services","18":"tag-taxpayer-money","19":"tag-the-department-of-children-and-families"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}