Feds to provide $485M in grants to combat opioid epidemic

ATLANTA (AP) – The federal government says it will provide states nearly half a billion dollars for prevention and treatment programs aimed at confronting the opioid epidemic.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price made the announcement Wednesday at a drug prevention summit in Atlanta.

The $485 million in grant money was contained in bipartisan legislation approved by Congress last year and signed by former President Barack Obama.

Price said the Trump administration has a five-part strategy on opioids: improved access to treatment and recovery services, making overdose-reversing drugs more widely available, stepped-up public health surveillance of the epidemic, support for research on pain and addiction, and promoting better ways to help patients manage pain.