Chicago March 28, 2025
In a shocking move, the Trump administration has announced the cancellation and revocation of roughly $11.4 billion in COVID-era funding for grants supporting addiction, mental health, and other programs. This sudden decision has left state and county public health departments, as well as nonprofit groups, reeling.
Keith Humphreys, an addiction policy researcher at Stanford University, criticized the move, saying, “This is chopping things off in the middle while people are actually doing the work.” He warned that the cancellation could trigger layoffs and treatment disruptions, adding, “Services will be dropped in the middle. Bang, the clinic is closing. It’s a brutal way to make these cuts.”
The Trump administration justified the decision, stating that the COVID-19 pandemic is over and that it will no longer “waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic.” Instead, the administration plans to refocus funding on America’s “chronic disease epidemic.”
