Source: United States Senator for Kentucky Mitch McConnell
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will distribute $35,912,100 to the Commonwealth of Kentucky through the State Opioid Response Grant Program.
As a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator McConnell helped secure $1.52 billion for this initiative in this year’s government funding bill, which the Senate passed and the President signed into law this March. During the 2018 government funding process, Senator McConnell ensured this program directs resources to states with the highest overdose mortality rates, like Kentucky.
The State Opioid Response Grant Program provides this funding as a block grant to Kentucky’s state government, which the state then distributes through its Kentucky Opioid Response Effort (KORE) office to programs that help prevent, reduce, and treat opioid abuse. To date, Senator McConnell has helped secure more than $350 million to combat drug abuse in Kentucky.
“Substance abuse and overdose deaths have spiked dramatically in Kentucky over the past few years, adding new urgency to our fight against opioid addiction. I was proud to secure billions of dollars for programs that help combat drug abuse in this year’s government funding bill and am glad that funding is already delivering much-needed help to the Commonwealth. Our fight against substance abuse is far from over, but the grant announced today gives our state the resources to take a positive step in the right direction,” said Senator McConnell.
Senator McConnell recently hosted Dr. Rahul Gupta, the Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), in Louisville and Bowling Green to discuss the drug epidemic with law enforcement and community leaders.
ONDCP Director Dr. Rahul Gupta lauded this funding announcement, saying it “will expand access to treatment for substance use disorder and prevent overdoses, while we also work to reduce the supply of illicit drugs in our communities and dismantle drug trafficking.”
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