DeLauro Statement on HHS Canceling Billions in Addiction and Mental Health Grants

WASHINGTON – Today, House Appropriations Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro issued the following statement after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. canceled billions of dollars in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) grants. 

These grants provide resources for overdose prevention, addiction recovery, and mental health services to individuals who are struggling throughout the country.

“These cuts will cost lives. Throughout his tenure, Secretary Kennedy has done nothing to make Americans safer, and everything to place us in more danger. Restricting vaccine access, calling into question proven treatments for diseases, and now stripping communities of the resources they need to prevent drug overdoses and treat addiction.

“We have an addiction and mental health crisis in this country that spares no family and yet, this administration is decimating the programs that help children, their families, and adults that are in recovery. We prioritized investments in treatment and prevention to address these crises, and we succeeded: overdose deaths fell for the past two years. This destruction threatens to reverse that progress. 

“These cuts by the Trump Administration are senseless and unconscionable. They will destroy families, ruin lives and cause preventable deaths. The Trump Administration must immediately reverse these cancellations of critical grants so that American families can continue to receive the services they depend on to survive. 

“This abrupt cancellation highlights the urgent need to pass full-year spending bills to protect this funding, and ensure communities throughout the nation have the resources to provide treatment for those who need it.”

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