The White House is providing $4 million in grants to go toward training officials on how to divert people with drug addictions into treatment programs, the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced Wednesday.
“This is what stigma reduction and cutting-edge public policy progress looks like,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who has made the opioid crisis one of his top platforms, said in a statement.
The diversion approach, known as “drug courts,” is intended to help keep people out of jail or prison after they have committed a nonviolent drug offense. People with addictions have to meet certain requirements including random drug testing, and appear before a judge to discuss their progress on finding a job, attending school, and staying away from drugs.
Officials and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been pushing for these kinds of approaches, which focus on treatment and prevention rather than incarceration, to combat the opioid crisis.
The grants will be allocated to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals to help communities beginning in 2019 and lasting until 2020. The announcement about the funds came soon after congressional leaders announced they had arrived at an agreement to pass a wide-ranging package to combat the opioid crisis, which killed 40,000 people in 2017. The crisis developed largely after doctors over-prescribed painkillers such as OxyContin, and after people became hooked they moved to illicit drugs such as heroin, which affect the brain in a similar way.
“Drug courts are one of the best ways to help people with substance use disorders who become involved in the criminal justice system,” Jim Carroll, acting director of the of ONDCP, said in a statement. “I’ve seen what a difference drug court participation can make in someone’s life. Support for drug courts helps participants get the addiction treatment they need.”
