Experts sounded a dire alarm after the Trump administration pulled the plug on nearly $2 billion in substance abuse and mental health funding, leaving thousands of providers scrambling and patients in a lurch.
Up to 2,800 grantees through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration received termination letters immediately — wiping out about 26% of the agency’s entire budget with zero warning, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
“It feels like Armageddon for everyone who’s on the frontlines of the addiction and mental health space,” Ryan Hampton, founder of Mobilize Recovery, a national advocacy organization for people in and seeking recovery, told the outlet.
“The scope of care that’s disrupted by these grants is catastrophic. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people will die.”
Providers awoke to devastation that they’d be forced to conduct staff layoffs, program shutdowns, and that services would be halted immediately. The cuts axe overdose prevention, naloxone distribution, school mental health support, and help for pregnant women struggling with substance abuse.
“Overnight, our entire backbone and infrastructure of addiction and mental health in this country flipped up on its head,” Hampton said. “These grants are lifesaving tools that honestly are a good reason why we have started to see a reversal in trends of drug overdoses in this country.”
The move comes as overdose deaths finally dropped 27% in 2024 after two decades of climbing rates.
“All of us are in a state of complete and utter shock that the administration would take such a reckless action,” Hampton said.
Legal challenges loom, but Hampton warned the damage is happening now.
“People will die. People will die.”
The post ‘Armageddon’: Stunned experts warn Trump just sentenced thousands to death with $2B cut appeared first on Raw Story.
