WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) today led a letter with Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) urging President Biden to request robust funding and increase the federal investment in our nation’s response to the ongoing opioid and substance use disorder (SUD) epidemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered the opioid and SUD prevention, treatment and recovery landscape in this country. The nature of this pandemic has increased social isolation and stress, while decreasing access to treatment and harm reduction resources, with significant repercussions for individuals facing addiction.

In their letter, the Senators request that President Biden prioritize funding for federal grants and programs aimed at opioid and SUD prevention, treatment, harm reduction and recovery in his upcoming budget proposal to Congress. The Senators also request increased support for the addiction treatment provider workforce, including through existing loan repayment and training grant programs. Finally, the Senators urge the President to request robust funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) ongoing work to support and expand essential services for overdose prevention, including demonstrations for harm reduction services, as well as support for ongoing efforts at the state, local, Tribal and territorial level.

In the letter to President Biden, the Senators write: “Despite the strong federal investment in the past few years, the opioid and SUD epidemic continues to evolve and ravage communities across the country, and the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to exacerbate this crisis. We urge you to support robust additional funding to fully support the needs of providers and state, local, Tribal and territorial governments as they work to prevent and treat substance use disorders during this challenging time. It is essential that we commit to allocating resources to a range of evidence-based public health programs, and that we fund these efforts at a level that appropriately reflects the magnitude of this crisis.”

“Too few Americans with substance use disorder are able to access healthcare professionals who understand how to prevent, diagnose, and treat addiction,” said Paul H. Earley, MD, President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. “In order to expand access to high-quality, evidence-based care, the United States must invest in the addiction treatment workforce, including loan repayment and provider training grant programs that incentivize more professionals to specialize in addiction treatment.”

As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds major anti-opioid programs, Senator Shaheen has led efforts in the Senate to combat the substance use disorder. In the final fiscal year (FY) 2021 government funding legislation that was signed into law, Shaheen successfully included $541.5 million for the Department of Justice anti-opioid and substance abuse grant programs. As a result of Shaheen’s leadership during negotiations for the emergency COVID relief signed into law last month, $4.25 billion in funding for substance use disorder treatment and mental health care was included in the final legislation. This additional funding builds on Shaheen’s ongoing effort to make certain that New Hampshire has the resources it needs to fight the substance use disorder epidemic. This included her successful effort to pass into law provisions from her Turn the Tide Act, which helped provide new flexibility for New Hampshire in the use of State Opioid Response (SOR) grants to treat methamphetamine and cocaine misuse, in addition to opioid misuse. Shaheen also led efforts in Congress to ensure that there was a 15 percent set-aside within the SOR grant program for the hardest-hit states like New Hampshire that have the highest per capita overdose death rates. As a result of these efforts, New Hampshire’s annual opioid response grant funding increased more than ten-fold. In total, the state has received approximately $92 million in opioid response grants in the past four years from this grant program.

The letter was also signed by Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Gary Peters (D-MI), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).