42 U.S.C. § 285o–2 — Drug Abuse Research Centers

(a) Authority: The Director of the Institute may designate National Drug Abuse Research Centers to do interdisciplinary research on drug abuse and related biomedical, behavioral, and social issues. No entity becomes a Center unless it applies and the Secretary approves, in whatever form and with whatever information the Secretary reasonably requires. The Secretary can't approve an application unless: (1) it gives reasonable assurance that the applicant (A) has the experience or ability to run long-term interdisciplinary research on drug abuse and coordinate across fields; (B) has enough facilities — labs, reference materials, data analysis tools; (C) has facilities and staff to train people in preventing and treating drug abuse; (D) can train pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students for drug-abuse research careers; (E) can teach courses on drug abuse to undergraduate and graduate students, including medical, nursing, social work, and other specialized graduate students; and (F) can run continuing-education programs in whatever medical, legal, and social-service fields the Secretary requires; and (2) the application includes a detailed five-year research plan on drug abuse. (b) Grants: The Director must make annual grants to designated Centers, under conditions the Secretary reasonably sets. None of this money may be used to buy land, or to buy, build, preserve, or repair any building — using the same definition of "construction" found in section 292a(1). (c) Drug abuse and addiction research: (1) The Director may make grants or sign cooperative agreements to grow the interdisciplinary research and clinical trials already happening with treatment centers in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, covering drug abuse and addiction and related biomedical, behavioral, and social issues. (2) This money may fund research and trials on: (A) how drug abuse affects the body, including the brain; (B) how addictive different drugs are, and how that differs between people; (C) the connection between drug abuse and mental health; (D) finding and testing the best ways to prevent drug abuse and addiction; (E) finding and developing the best ways to treat drug addiction, including with medication; (F) what makes people more likely to abuse drugs; (G) how drug abuse and addiction affect pregnant women and their fetuses; and (H) the cultural, social, behavioral, neurological, and psychological reasons people abuse drugs or don't. (3) The Director must quickly share the results of this research with federal, state, and local groups fighting drug abuse and addiction.