The federal government will provide $10 million to the state of Missouri to help combat opioid addiction.
The grant will go to the Missouri Department of Mental Health, according to Katie Boyd, a press secretary for the U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt.
“Addiction is treatable, but only around 10 percent of those struggling with the disease get the help they need,” Blunt said in a news release on Wednesday announcing the grant.
“This grant will expand access to treatment, recovery, and prevention programs, and strengthen our state’s ability to combat this growing epidemic,” Blunt said in the news release.
The grant is a response to the growing crisis of opioid overdoses in the U.S. Opioid-related overdoses have quadrupled since 1999 and led to death of 33,091 people in the U.S. in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2015, 1,066 people died of opioid overdose in Missouri.
The grant is a part of the 21st Century Cures Act adopted by Congress in December that will provide up to $1 billion to help states confront opioid abuse.
Meanwhile, the Missouri General Assembly is trying to adopt the bills to launch the prescription drug monitoring program that would let doctors and pharmacists check whether a patient has been prescribed addictive medications.
Missouri remains the only state without its own monitoring program. Several cities and counties, including Columbia, have established local monitoring systems.
In 2016, seven health centers in Missouri received a combined $2.4 million in grants from the federal government to expand the efforts against opioid addiction, according to previous Missourian reporting.