President Biden and Vice President Harris have made addressing the nation’s overdose epidemic a top priority of this Administration and a key pillar of the President’s Unity Agenda for the Nation. Under their leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken more historic action and made more unprecedented investments than ever before to address this epidemic and save lives.

When President Biden and Vice President Harris took office in January 2021, the number of overdose deaths were increasing 31% year-over-year. Just earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that drug overdose deaths decreased by 3% over the past year — marking the first decline in the overdose death rate in more than five years.

Monthly provisional data released from the CDC shows that drug overdose deaths are continuing to fall. The latest provisional data from the CDC released this month shows a 16.9% reduction in overdose deaths in the 12-months ending July 2024, which is the largest recorded reduction in overdose deaths and the eighth consecutive month of reported decreases in predicted 12-month total numbers of drug overdose deaths.

Historic Actions to Strengthen Public Health

At President Biden and Vice President Harris’ direction, the Biden-Harris Administration has removed decades-long barriers to treatment for substance use disorder and expanded access to life-saving overdose reversal medications to help address the overdose epidemic and save lives.

Historic Biden-Harris Administration actions to expand access to treatment include:

  • Expanding the number of health care providers who can prescribe medication for opioid use disorder from 129,000 to up to 1.8 million with the elimination of the X-Waiver.
  • Updating federal regulations for opioid treatment programs for the first time in more than two decades. This historic update included:
    • Making permanent COVID-19 era flexibilities that expand eligibility for patients to receive take-home doses of methadone. This will help reduce the burden of transportation for frequent clinic visits. Research has shown that patients receiving take-home doses are more likely to remain in treatment and less likely to use illicit opioids.
    • Allowing initiation of treatment via telehealth, including methadone via audio-visual telehealth technology, and buprenorphine via audio-only technology, to remove transportation barriers.
    • Expanding provider eligibility to allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to order medications in OTPs, where state law allows, to reduce the burden on OTP operations and increase patient access to medications.
    • Breaking down barriers to entry for treatment by removing the stringent admission criteria that had previously required patients to have a history of addiction for a full year before being eligible for treatment. This will help open more doors to treatment for more people when they need it and ensure that everyone can get the care they need.
    • Expanding access to interim treatment, allowing patients to initiate medication treatment while awaiting further services to ensure people have access to care as soon as they are ready and reduce the barriers of treatment waitlists.
  • Lifting a 17-year moratorium on mobile methadone vans which allow for greater access to this FDA approved medication, especially in rural areas and areas where access to treatment is limited.
  • Permitting the use of State Opioid Response funds to be used for substance use treatment and services for people who are incarcerated.
  • Allowing states to use Medicaid funds to provide health care services—including treatment for people with substance use disorder—to individuals in carceral settings.

Historic Biden-Harris Administration actions to expand access to overdose reversal medication include:

  • Approving overdose reversal medications for over-the-counter purchase for the first time ever, making these lifesaving medications now available at grocery stories and pharmacies.
  • Investing historic amounts of funding in the State Opioid Response and Tribal Opioid Response programs, which have delivered nearly 10 million kits of opioid overdose reversal medications.
  • Convening U.S. drug manufacturers who have FDA-approved overdose reversal medication products to discuss ways to increase access and affordability to save more lives.
  • Launching the Real Deal on Fentanyl campaign to educate young people on the dangers of fentanyl and the life-saving effects of naloxone with the Ad Council, along with a Spanish- language companion site.
  • Making it easier for harm reduction organizations to obtain naloxone directly from manufacturers and distributors while expanding public availability of this critical medicine.
  • Supporting states through enhanced technical assistance, policy academies, and convenings to ensure existing State Opioid Response funds are used to saturate hard-hit communities with naloxone.
  • Delivering funds directly to states so they can purchase naloxone.
  • Calling for an additional $459 million for harm reduction services like naloxone in the President’s FY25 budget request.
  • Launching the White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose, calling on stakeholders across all sectors to help save lives by committing to increase training on and access to life-saving opioid overdose reversal medications.

Historic Actions to Crack Down on Illicit Drug Trafficking

The Biden-Harris Administration has also made cracking down on global illicit drug trafficking and holding drug traffickers accountable a key priority in the efforts to beat the overdose epidemic. Under President Biden and Vice President Harris’ leadership, the Administration has invested significant amounts of funding for law enforcement efforts to address illicit fentanyl trafficking and seized historic amounts of illicit drugs at our border.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s decisive actions to crack down on drug trafficking include:

  • Seizing historic amounts of illicit drugs at our border. Border officials have stopped more illicit fentanyl at ports of entry in the past two fiscal years than in the previous five fiscal years combined.
  • Deploying cutting-edge drug detection technology at the border. The Administration has added dozens of new inspection systems at ports of entry and continues to invest in detection technology at U.S. borders, with dozens more systems coming online next year.
  • Strengthening the United States’ ability to target foreign persons engaged in the global illicit drug trade. Since 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned over 300 persons and entities under this new Executive Order, thereby cutting them off from the United States’ financial system.
  • Taking law enforcement action against drug traffickers and their key enablers that operate around the globe. The U.S. Department of Justice has arrested and prosecuted dozens of leaders of some of the world’s largest and most powerful drug cartels.
  • Strengthening global action in the fight against synthetic opioids, including by launching the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which brings together more than 150 countries to fight the scourge of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, and establishing a Trilateral Fentanyl Committee with the Governments of Mexico and Canada to engage in joint actions to disrupt drug trafficking.
  • President Biden negotiated the resumption of counternarcotics cooperation with President Xi, we have established the bilateral Counternarcotics Working Group, and we have increased law enforcement cooperation with the PRC and information sharing about emerging trends. Since the renewed cooperation, the PRC has taken action against companies that supply precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit fentanyl and announced three major scheduling actions in the past two months, bringing more than 55 dangerous synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals under control.
  • Issuing a National Security Memorandum calling on all relevant Federal Departments and Agencies to do even more than they are already doing to stop the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in our country.
  • Calling on Congress to enact legislation to increase penalties on those who bring deadly drugs into our communities and to close loopholes that drug traffickers exploit.
  • Expanding the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program, which provides $298 million to support federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement working to stop drug traffickers across all 50 states. In 2023 alone, HIDTAs supported law enforcement in successfully disrupting and dismantling more than 3,000 drug trafficking and money laundering organizations, removing more than $17 billion of illegal drugs from the market (including more than 9,000 kilograms and more than 117 million pills of fentanyl), and seizing $641.9 million from drug traffickers.

Historic Funding to Address the Overdose Epidemic

The Biden-Harris Administration has not only taken historic policy actions, but invested historic amounts of funding to help make these policy changes a reality. Over the past four years, the Biden-Harris Administration has invested $167.2 billion in total drug control funding – 20.6 percent more than the previous administration – to address the opioid crisis.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FY 2021 – FY 2024TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FY 2017 – FY 2020% DIFFERENCE
$167.2 Billion$138.6 Billion20.6%

The Biden-Harris Administration has also invested 40.6% more than the previous administration in treatment for substance use disorder.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FY 2021 – FY 2024TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FY 2017 – FY 2020% DIFFERENCE
$82.4 Billion$58.6 Billion40.6%

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