WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today praised an announcement by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) that the President’s upcoming budget will include $1 billion to fight the heroin and prescription drug abuse epidemic in America. In a letter to the President this past December, Senator King called on the Administration to increase the federal government’s financial commitment to combatting drug addiction and supporting communities dealing with the opioid crisis. ONDCP Director Michael Botticelli personally informed Senator King of the increase in a phone call.

“For those struggling with addiction, for their families, for medical professionals and law enforcement officers, this funding is more than just money. It’s hope – hope that, together, we can finally stem the tide on an epidemic that’s taken too many lives and ravaged too many communities,” Senator King said. “I applaud the Administration for taking this much-needed step, and I urge my colleagues to come together in a bipartisan way to fully fund the President’s request. Doing so will help deliver the necessary tools and resources to those who are fighting this crisis every day and, ultimately, save lives.”

Today, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and ONDCP Director Botticelli announced that President Obama’s forthcoming Fiscal Year 2017 Budget will include $1 billion in new mandatory funding over two years to expand access to treatment for prescription drug abuse and heroin use. The announcement falls in line with a December 2015 letter from Senator King to President Obama, in which Senator King requested that the Administration increase funding to combat the crisis.

More specifically, the funding includes:

• $920 million to support cooperative agreements with States to expand access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders. States will receive funds based on the severity of the epidemic and on the strength of their strategy to respond to it.  States can use these funds to expand treatment capacity and make services more affordable.

• $50 million in National Health Service Corps funding to expand access to substance use treatment providers.  This funding will help support approximately 700 providers able to provide substance use disorder treatment services, including medication-assisted treatment, in areas across the country most in need of behavioral health providers.

• $30 million to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment programs employing medication-assisted treatment under real-world conditions and help identify opportunities to improve treatment for patients with opioid use disorders.

The President’s budget will also include approximately $500 million – an increase of more than $90 million – to continue and build on current efforts across the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand state-level prescription drug overdose prevention strategies, increase the availability of medication-assisted treatment programs, improve access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, and support targeted enforcement activities.

Senator King is a cosponsor of an emergency funding bill introduced by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that would provide a total of $600 million in supplemental appropriations to programs at the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery.

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