§10701 Description

Summary

The Attorney General can give grants to States, local governments, and Indian tribes to pay for services mostly about opioid abuse. The money can be used to create or grow treatment alternatives to jail (including prebooking or postbooking programs, training for justice staff, mental health courts, drug courts, veterans treatment courts, programs that help parents at risk of losing custody, law-enforcement diversion programs, and a rural pilot to lower overdose deaths). Grants can also help State criminal justice and substance abuse agencies plan together, train and buy FDA-approved opioid-overdose reversal drugs for first responders, investigate illegal opioid distribution, expand medication-assisted treatment in justice settings, build or improve prescription drug monitoring programs for schedules II, III, and IV that share data across States, start juvenile opioid programs, use technology to keep prescriptions safe, run drug take-back efforts, or set up a full community opioid-response program. Grantees may hire or give subawards to nonprofits (including faith-based groups), local governments, or tribal organizations. Each funded program must include an assessment made under Attorney General rules with the National Institute of Justice, though the Attorney General can waive that for very small programs. No more than 10 percent of a grant can pay administrative costs. Grants may last up to 4 years, but can be renewed or extended by the Attorney General. For the rural pilot, local governments must work with public safety and health partners, identify service gaps, set treatment plans, and the Attorney General can increase the grant by up to 5 percent in each of the two years after the rural area certifies it submitted prescription data for schedules II, III, and IV to a state database that shares data across States. The law does not force a State to use any specific interstate data-sharing system or limit how a State connects its monitoring program to others.