GOODBYE SAMHSA –
June 6, 2025 – The country’s main mental health agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, commonly known as SAMHSA, is in the process of being dissolved. It has lost more than a third of its staff of about 900 this year as part of recent reductions in the federal workforce. President Trump’s budget bill cuts $1 billion from the agency’s s operating budget, and its mission is being folded into a new entity shaped by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Lawmakers, researchers and health care providers are concerned. At a hearing held by the House Appropriations Committee last month, some Democratic lawmakers grilled the health secretary about this. Rep. Madeleine Dean, representing suburban Philadelphia, asked Kennedy about these changes in light of the recent progress in overdose deaths.
“A 27% reduction in overdose deaths in this country,” said Dean, who has personal experience with opioid addiction through one of her sons who’s in recovery. “Overdose is still stealing a generation in this country. So why in God’s name are we shuttering SAMHSA?”
