42 U.S.C. § 280b–1 — Preventing overdoses of controlled substances

(a) Evidence-based prevention grants (1) In general: The CDC Director may, as much as practical, carry out and expand the evidence-based prevention activities listed in paragraph (2); give states, local governments, and Indian Tribes training and technical help to carry out those activities; and award them grants to carry out those activities. (2) Evidence-based prevention activities: These include improving prescription drug monitoring programs by getting all authorized users to register and use them; letting those users see updated data in as close to real time as possible; making the programs easier to use; adding a way for the program to warn authorized users about possible misuse, abuse, or improper prescribing or dispensing; encouraging analysis of monitoring data to produce de-identified, combined reports for state public health, substance abuse, and licensing agencies — as allowed by law and program policy, and without any protected health information — to stop improper prescribing, drug diversion, or misuse, and to help agencies coordinate; improving how well the program works with health information technology, including built-in data sharing; updating the program to keep up with new technology as overdose patterns change; helping the program share data with other states' monitoring programs; improving data collection and quality, including better patient matching and monitoring data quality; giving prescribers and dispensers tools — like reports comparing their prescribing patterns to peers in their specialty; and meeting the purpose of the program under section 280g–3 of this title. Other listed activities are: promoting community or health-system interventions; evaluating interventions that prevent overdoses and related risks; and running innovative projects addressing new and emerging public health threats, such as boosting public education about overdose risks. (3) Additional grants: The Director may also award grants to states, local governments, and Indian Tribes to: run innovative projects that detect, identify, and quickly respond to misuse, abuse, and overdoses of controlled substances and their risk factors — which may include tools like wastewater surveillance, if proven useful and done consistent with privacy laws; and fund any other evidence-based activity the Director thinks fits for preventing misuse, abuse, and overdoses. (4) Research: Working with the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory, as appropriate, the Director may study and evaluate substance use disorders, including how to prevent them or other related topics the Director finds fitting. (b) Better overdose data collection, analysis, and sharing grants (1) In general: The Director may, as much as practical, carry out the data-collection activities in paragraph (2); give training and technical help to states, local governments, and Indian Tribes to carry out those activities; award them grants to do so; and coordinate with the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use to gather data on people admitted to emergency rooms because of alcohol or drug abuse. (2) Data activities: These include reporting overdose data — fatal and nonfatal — to the public faster; making overdose data more complete by gathering information from sources like toxicology reports, autopsy reports, death-scene investigations, and emergency rooms; modernizing how deaths from controlled-substance overdoses are tracked, moving to electronic systems; using data to identify overdose risk factors; helping coroners, medical examiners, and public health labs test and report causes and contributing factors more accurately and consistently, including for newer substances; and helping different data sources and groups share and use overdose information together. (c) Priority When giving grants to states under (a) or (b), the Director may prioritize places with unusually high rates of drug overdoses or overdose deaths. (d) Definitions "Controlled substance" has the meaning given in section 802 of title 21. "Indian tribe" has the meaning given in section 5304 of title 25. (e) Money authorized Congress authorizes $505,579,000 for each of fiscal years 2026 through 2030, to carry out this section, section 280g–3 of this title, and section 290bb–25g of this title.