42 U.S.C. § 290bb–22 — Priority substance use disorder prevention needs of regional and national significance

(a) The Secretary must tackle the most important substance use disorder prevention 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 prevention knowledge, including evaluating those projects; (2) training and technical assistance; and (3) targeted capacity response programs, including ones that focus on new and emerging drug use problems. The Secretary may run these activities directly, or through grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements with states, parts of states, Indian Tribes or Tribal organizations (as defined in section 5304 of title 25), health facilities, Indian Health Service programs, or other public or nonprofit private groups. (b)(1) The Secretary decides which prevention needs count as priorities of regional and national importance, working with the states and other interested groups. The Secretary must meet with the states and those groups once a year to discuss priorities. (2) In setting those priorities, the Secretary must give special weight to (A) using the most promising strategies and research-based approaches to primary prevention; (B) folding substance use disorder prevention information and activities into regular primary health care; and (C) preventing substance use disorders among high-risk groups. (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 that spread the findings of the knowledge-development, training-and-technical-assistance, and targeted-capacity-response programs under this section — to the public and to health professionals. 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 $218,219,000 for this section for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027.