The Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it will offer states more than $1.8 billion in new funding to fight the opioid crisis. The money will be used to expand access to treatments and collect data on the epidemic, the department said.
HHS also projects that by the end of the year it will have awarded more than $9 billion in opioid treatment and prevention grants to states and local communities since the start of the Trump administration.
Prescription opioids and drugs like heroin and fentanyl were responsible for 47,600 U.S. deaths in 2017, with that number declining slightly last year, according to the government figures cited by Reuters.
