Bush's Budget Cuts Funding For Substance Abuse

Major SAMHSA programs slated for cuts or elimination under the president's FY09 budget plan for HHS include its Programs of Regional and National Significance: cut by $250 million, to $639 million. The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment's budget would fall by $63 million, while the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention would have $36 million less to spend next year if Bush's plan were approved. The Center for Mental Health Services would be slashed by $126 million.

Drug-prevention advocates and others are raising the alarm over President Bush's FY2009 budget plan, which slashed $198 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and calls for elimination of the Recovery Community Support Programs and the STOP Underage Drinking program.

The budget also calls for spending $10 million less on the Drug Free Communities program, a major funding source for many community anti-drug coalitions. "The majority of programs that our field advocates for were recommended for severe cuts," noted Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America in an action alert calling for supporters to contact lawmakers to oppose the cuts. "Only a very small handful of programs were recommended for increases."

But Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, charged Bush with "robbing Peter to pay Paul -- taking critical funds from essential domestic programs to fund the president's pet projects and the president's disastrous war and nation-building adventure in Iraq."

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