Minnesota stands to gain $10 million in life saving aid for opioid response resources.
The White House is urging Congress to act on a request from President Biden to provide states with more opioid response grants to combat the overdose epidemic.
State Addiction and Recovery Director, Jeremy Drucker says the funds would improve opioid related care at every level.
We think about things like harm reduction, we think about things like treatment and recovery, and so we're going to take a really hard look at the state in terms of where we could use those dollars," Drucker explained to WCCO.
Drucker says although overdoses in the state are plateauing, the top priority is bringing them down by targeting drugs like fentanyl.
"The rise of synthetic opioids, and fentanyl in particular, have really changed the landscape of drug use in this country and in Minnesota," Drucker said. "Over 100,000 Americans died in a single year from this crisis. Over 1,000 Minnesotans as well."
The White House estimates that past grants prevented roughly 500,000 overdose deaths.
The State Opioid Response grant program has provided treatment services to over 1.2 million people and enabled states to reverse approximately 500,000 overdoses with nearly 9 million purchased overdose reversal medication kits. The Administration’s supplemental request for the grant program would expand these services.
Click here for a list of how the money will be distributed by state.