U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) recently visited a substance abuse treatment facility in Manchester, N.H., to highlight how the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) will support recovery programs.
Ayotte discussed CARA, a bill that she co-authored and worked to get signed into law, during a visit to Manchester’s Live Free Structured Sober Living.
“Live Free Structured Sober Living is a critically important recovery program, and I appreciated the discussion we had during Thursday’s visit about the framework that CARA provides to help strengthen our response to this epidemic,” Ayotte said. “As New Hampshire works together to turn the tide of this crisis, we have to continue our work to support programs like Live Free to remove the stigma of addiction and get people the help they need to enter and sustain recovery.”
CARA, which was signed into law in July, authorizes $181 million in funding for agencies and programs that support treatment and recovery, as well as drug abuse prevention.
Ayotte also applauded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) announcement on Tuesday that New Hampshire would be awarded a grant to enhance the surveillance of opioid-related overdoses and deaths.
“I’ve been pushing the administration to swiftly release funding we allocated at the end of the year to fight the heroin and prescription opioid abuse crisis, and I’m pleased that New Hampshire has been selected as a recipient of this grant,” Ayotte said. “This CDC grant will improve our monitoring of overdoses and deaths from heroin and other opioids, which will help inform how we should respond to this ongoing crisis.”
Ayotte sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services in December calling for the release of opioids abuse funding that was allocated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act.