Trump Admin Cuts Addiction and Mental Health Funds

Thousands of federal grants funding mental health and addiction services were suddenly terminated late Tuesday as the Trump administration sent hundreds of notices announcing the discontinuations.

The sudden terminations at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) affected over 2700 of the agency’s discretionary grants worth nearly $1.9 billion.

According to NPR, a bunch of mental health and addiction treatment programs were notified late Tuesday that their federal funding through SAMHSA had been slashed after officials deemed their efforts incompatible with those of the Trump administration.

A termination notice gathered by CBS News, which was sent to a grant recipient by a high-ranking SAMHSA official, specified that the agency was "terminating some of its awards, in order to better prioritize agency resources,” shifting their priorities to ones “that address the rising rates of mental illness and substance abuse conditions, overdose, and suicide."

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) CEO Daniel Gillison Jr. voiced his thoughts on the matter through a statement issued on Wednesday.

“These cuts are disheartening and cruel, and they threaten the life-saving work of hundreds of organizations that provide critical mental health support across the United States. Addressing our mental health and substance use crises in this country has never been political, which is why it continues to have bipartisan support in Congress,” Gillison said.

SAMHSA, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, aims to tackle mental health issues and address substance abuse throughout the US. At the federal level, the agency takes charge of public health initiatives that seek to reduce the gravity of mental illness and substance abuse within neighborhoods, while additionally allocating dollars to state and local groups for mental health and addiction services.

The recent wave of terminations follows the Trump administration’s widespread Medicaid cuts, which have impacted many public health programs. The remaining cuts are planned to be fully implemented throughout the year.