While overdose deaths have been decreasing in recent years, more than 80,000 people died from overdoses in 2024, and over 48 million people had substance use disorder (SUD). Now is a time to double down on the efforts to address our overdose and addiction crises.

In order to prevent a backslide on progress made, evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, and treatment programs need continued federal support. Congress is working to pass a budget for fiscal year 2026, before January 30, when a partial government shutdown would go into effect if Congress has not passed the funding bills. 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), National Institutes of Health (NIH), etc.

The House passed a version of the bill that would largely preserve funding for these agencies and programs. The bill still needs to be passed by the Senate and signed by the President to ensure this critical funding to address the addiction crisis is maintained.

Given various moves by the administration in the past year, it is particularly critical to advocate to ensure that these agencies and programs receive adequate funding.

In the President’s proposed budget released early last year, the administration suggested a number of cuts and changes to federal funding for SUD, including:

• cutting more than $30 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS);
• combining SAMHSA with other agencies into the new Administration for a Healthy America;
• reducing the amount of funding for mental health and SUD services;
  eliminating many SAMHSA programs (e.g., Strategic Prevention Framework; Sober Truth on Prevention Underage Drinking; Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment; naloxone programs; treatment for pregnant/postpartum women, families, and homeless individuals; recovery services; etc.);
• 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) with other institutes focused on behavioral health;
• eliminating the Tobacco Program at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA);
• and slashing CDC funding and programs for overdose prevention.

Earlier this month, the administration terminated more than 2,000 SAMHSA grants that provided nearly $2 billion for mental health and addiction services, though it quickly restored the funds following intense pushback.

And amid last summer’s cuts to Medicaid, which is the largest payer of substance use treatment services, and other cuts to federal grants and funding, providing adequate funding to these programs and agencies that support efforts to prevent and treat substance use in the yearly funding bill is crucial.

The version of the bill passed by the House rejects many of the proposals in the administration’s budget and would instead maintain critical funding for programs that address the addiction crisis. It would:

• provide HHS with $116.8 billion, an increase of $210 million over 2025 and $33 billion more than the Trump administration proposed;
• keep funding about flat for NIH (rather than cut it by 40%), retain all 27 institutes and centers (including NIDA), and block plans that would change how NIH grants are distributed and used;
• fund CDC at its current level, rather than slash it in half, and continue to fund centers including the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; and
• keep SAMHSA funding at a similar level to previous years and maintain it as a separate agency.

It is critical that the final version of the bill similarly maintains funding for agencies and programs that address substance use and addiction.

Send a letter to your senators urging them to fully fund such programs and agencies to help address the addiction crisis, which continues to affect millions of Americans.