Libby Jones, Associate Vice President, Overdose Prevention Initiative
The measure of the 2026 National Drug Control Strategy will not be its language. It will be whether a person who needs help today can actually get it. By that standard, the strategy deserves both recognition and scrutiny.
The strategy frames addiction as a chronic, treatable disease. It commits to making FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder, including buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone, readily available. It calls for naloxone to be affordable and within reach of anyone who may need it. It also recognizes that recovery can happen through many pathways. These details reflect the evidence base that should guide federal overdose policy.
The concern is whether the administration's budget matches the strategy. The FY 2027 President's Budget Request reduces the Mental and Behavioral Health subtotal by $576 million and cuts Substance Abuse Prevention by $261 million. It also restructures core behavioral health funding by consolidating major grant programs into a new Behavioral Health Innovation Block Grant. Flexibility can help states respond to local needs, but flexibility cannot substitute for adequate funding. A strategy that says treatment should be easier to obtain than illicit drugs must have the infrastructure to make that real.
Three implementation tests will matter most.
First, medications for opioid use disorder must remain a leading, science-backed standard of care. Access to buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone should not erode through unnecessary administrative barriers, unstable Medicaid coverage or limits on telehealth flexibility.
Second, housing policy must help people reach care, not create new conditions that keep people at highest risk of overdose from getting support. "Treatment First" should operate as a pathway into services, not as a barrier to housing, stability or recovery.
Third, federal agencies must align funding guidance with the strategy's acknowledgment that rapid test strips and other drug checking technologies are important overdose prevention tools. The strategy cannot recognize their value while funding decisions weaken access to them.
We support accountability. We do not support accountability frameworks that function as gatekeeping.
The country saw a historic decline of 27% in overdose deaths in 2024. That progress remains fragile. Sustaining it will require treatment access, overdose reversal medications, timely data, community-based services and recovery support that people can reach before a crisis becomes fatal.
We have worked across administrations, across party lines and alongside partners nationwide because overdose prevention is not a partisan exercise. We will engage this strategy the same way, supporting the evidence and identifying policy choices that put access to care at risk. The standard is simple: people should be able to get the help that evidence says will work.
View the full letter here.
