March 6 (UPI) — A nearly $50 million allocation will enable the nation’s Rural Opioid Treatment and Recovery Initiative to fund opioid abuse treatment and recovery services in rural communities throughout the nation.
The grant funding will make it easier create and expand existing services that address opioid abuse disorder in rural communities, officials for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration announced Wednesday.
The initiative “reflects our unwavering commitment to improve the health and well-being of all Americans,” HHS Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm said in a statement. It “prioritizes building and expanding access to opioid use disorder treatment and recovery services in rural communities.”
Palm said the initiative “creates pathways for recovery” for opioid users in rural areas, including providing transportation, employment and other needed supports to combat the opioid crisis created by fentanyl, heroin and opioid-based prescription medications.
Grant funding applications are being accepted through May 6.
The initiative is part of the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program that offers 10 grant programs administered by HRSA officials to help rural communities overcome the nation’s opioid crisis.
Opioid addiction has become one of the nation’s top killers in recent years, and the opioid crisis has claimed more than a million lives in the United States since 2000, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The council says opioids claim more than 1,500 lives every week in the United States, with fentanyl being the primary driver of the opioid crisis.
Fentanyl is a synthetic drug that is about 50 times more potent than morphine, mostly is made in China and Mexico, and is then smuggled into the United States by drug cartels.
The opioid epidemic started in the 1990s with easy access to prescription opioids, the council says, but fentanyl and other synthetic opioids became the primary drivers of the nation’s opioid crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic that supported a steep rise in their use.
