42 U.S.C. § 290bb–2 — Priority substance use disorder treatment needs of regional and national significance

(a) The Secretary must tackle the most important substance use disorder treatment needs across regions and the whole country (as decided under subsection (b)). The Secretary does this by providing, or helping pay for: (1) projects that develop and apply new knowledge about treatment and rehabilitation, including evaluating those projects; (2) training and technical assistance; and (3) targeted capacity response programs, which let states, local governments, communities, and Indian Tribes and Tribal organizations (as defined in section 5304 of title 25) focus on new trends in substance use disorders, including when they occur alongside mental illness or other conditions. The Secretary may run these activities directly, or through grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements with states, parts of states, Indian tribes or tribal organizations, health facilities, Indian Health Service programs, or other public or nonprofit private groups. (b)(1) The Secretary decides which treatment needs count as priorities of regional and national importance, after talking with the states and other interested groups. The Secretary must meet with the states and these groups once a year to discuss what the priorities should be. (2) When setting those priorities, the Secretary must give special weight to folding substance use disorder treatment services into regular primary health care. (c)(1) Anyone getting a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement under this section must follow whatever information and application rules the Secretary decides are appropriate. (2) No award's payments can run for more than 5 years. (3) The Secretary may require recipients to put up non-federal matching money — in cash or in kind, like equipment or services — to make sure they are genuinely committed to the project. (4) The Secretary may also require a recipient to keep spending its own (non-federal) money on the funded activity at least at the level it spent the year before it got the grant. (d) The Secretary must evaluate every knowledge-development-and-application project run under subsection (a)(1) and share what each evaluation finds with the appropriate public and private groups. (e) The Secretary must set up thorough information and education programs. These programs spread and apply what the knowledge-development, training-and-technical-assistance, and targeted-capacity-response programs under this section discover — sharing it with the public, health professionals, and other interested groups. The Secretary must try hard to connect what these projects learn with the state agencies that run substance use disorder prevention and treatment programs. (f) Congress authorized $521,517,000 for this section for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027.