White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta speaks with media members following an event at PROACT on Aug. 18 in Huntington.
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta speaks with media members following an event at PROACT on Aug. 18 in Huntington.
HUNTINGTON — West Virginia is set to receive $44.3 million in grants and an increase in other resources from the White House to help its effort in combating — and eventually ending — the opioid crisis.
Announced Friday, the opioid response grant of $44,337,509 was awarded to the state Department of Health and Human Resources. It was part of $1.5 billion awarded to all states and U.S. territories as part of National Recovery Month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Friday’s announcement was accompanied by information on other support measures, including providing guidance to employers who hire people with substance use disorder, making naloxone — an overdose-reversing drug — more accessible and providing more funding to law enforcement agents, among other things.
During a news conference at the White House Recovery Month Summit, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta, who previously worked in West Virginia, said each person who experiences substance use disorder is capable of achieving and sustaining recovery, and the administration is dedicated to supporting them.
“Today, building on the progress that we have already made, the Biden-Harris administration is announcing several key investments and actions to reducing overdose deaths to ensure that public health and law enforcement officials on the front lines have resources that they need to support people in recovery,” he said.
The announcement came after President Joe Biden declared beating the opioid crisis as a key pillar of his “Unity Agenda” while outlining actions the administration would take to support tens of millions of Americans in recovery and others with active substance use disorder.
Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget request calls for an investment of $42.5 billion in National Drug Control Program agencies, a $3.2 billion increase over the current budget.
The monies come from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s State Opioid Response and Tribal Opioid Response grant programs and will be used to increase access to treatment, remove barriers to public health interventions like naloxone and expand access to recovery support services.
The funding will also help states increase investments in overdose education, peer support specialists in emergency departments and allow states to invest in other strategies to help save lives in hard-hit communities.
The Health Resources and Services Administration is investing more than $104 million to expand substance use treatment and prevention in rural communities. The funding will go to public, private and nonprofit entities in rural areas working to expand access to treatment and prevention services for substance use disorder as part of the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through SAMHSA, also awarded $20.5 million to organizations that help connect individuals who have substance use disorders with community resources. The funding will help clients in drug court systems restabilize their lives, the White House said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also issued guidance intended to facilitate the distribution of FDA-approved naloxone products. The guidance helps address some of the obstacles to obtaining access to naloxone, including allowing eligible community-based programs to acquire FDA-approved drugs directly from manufacturers and distributors.
Biden’s National Drug Control Strategy also announced $12 million for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) task forces, on top of $275 million given to programs earlier this year, to support law enforcement officials working to reduce violent crime, improve data sharing and dismantle illicit finance operations.
Working with the United States, foreign partners and industries, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has been using financial sanctions to disrupt drug traffickers, particularly in Mexico, to stop the illicit production of synthetic opioids. The financial sanction designations have affected 27 people and 17 entities, the White House said.
The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has launched the Recovery-Ready Workplace Resource Hub, giving guidance on how businesses, unions and others can create recovery-ready workplaces. A similar program has already been created locally by Marshall Health’s Creating Opportunities for Recovery Employment (CORE) initiative.
Gupta said these things combined will help the national recovery community reach its goal of ending the opioid crisis.
“President Biden recognizes the value of recovery, and we are working hard to build a recovery-ready nation,” he said. “Because beating this epidemic and supporting people in recovery is not a red state or blue state issue. It’s not a rich or poor issue. It’s not a rural or urban issue. It is America’s issue.”
Courtney Hessler is a reporter for The Herald-Dispatch, primarily covering Marshall University. Follow her on Facebook.com/CHesslerHD and via Twitter @HesslerHD.
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