While overdose deaths have been decreasing in recent years, more than 80,000 people died from overdose in 2024, and over 48 million people had a substance use disorder (SUD) or addiction. Now is the time to double down on effective efforts to address overdose and addiction.
In order to prevent a backslide on progress made, evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, and treatment programs need continued federal support. Congress is beginning to work on funding bills for fiscal year 2027, which begins on October 1, 2026. The budget bills determine how much money agencies and programs throughout the federal government will receive, including those focused on preventing and treating substance use, addiction, and related harms at agencies including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The administration recently released the President’s proposed budget. This outlines the administration’s priorities and serves as a recommendation to Congress, which has ultimate say over funding.
The President’s budget proposes a number of cuts and changes to federal funding for SUD, including:
- cutting more than 12% from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which houses SAMHSA, CDC, and NIH, among other agencies critical for addressing substance use and addiction in the United States;
- combining SAMHSA, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and other agencies into the new Administration for a Healthy America focused on primary care, maternal and child health, mental health, HIV/AIDS, and workforce development, cutting $5 billion from the included agencies in the process;
- reducing the amount of funding for mental health and SUD services by $576 million and eliminating harm reduction programs and many other SAMHSA programs (e.g., Strategic Prevention Framework; Sober Truth on Prevention Underage Drinking; Drug Abuse Warning Network; treatment for children, families, and homeless individuals);
- consolidating and reducing funding for the largest substance use grants (Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Support Services Block Grant, State Opioid Response grants);
- reducing funding for addiction and other research at NIH and consolidating the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) into a new institute with a smaller budget;
- and slashing CDC funding and programs for chronic disease and injury prevention, which include research and programming related to substance use, addiction, and related risk and protective factors.
The administration proposed similar, though even larger, cuts last year, but Congress ultimately did not adopt the proposed changes and instead maintained needed funding for mental health and substance use agencies and services. Given other recent cuts to health agency staffing and funding, as well as Medicaid, which is the largest payer of substance use treatment services, providing adequate funding to these programs and agencies that support efforts to prevent and treat substance use in the yearly funding bill is crucial.
Send a letter to your members of Congress urging them to again fully fund such programs and agencies to help address the addiction crisis, which continues to affect millions of Americans.