Center for Drug Policy and Prevention Receives $2 Million from White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to Help Reduce Drug Overdoses
September 20, 2020
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's Center for Drug Policy and Prevention (CDPP) has received $2 million in federal funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and will invest it in innovative incubator projects designed to reduce drug overdose across the country.
Overdose death remains the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. As directed by the Federal Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-Level Interdiction Initiative, CDPP will solicit proposals from across the country that:
- use evidence-based approaches to implement or enhance community-based programs aimed to reduce overdose incidents, particularly in the regions of the United States with the highest rates of fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses;
- support and promote collaboration between public safety and public health agencies to ensure that overdose reduction efforts are aligned and that communities benefit from a comprehensive and coordinated response.
CDPP will provide technical assistance to support implementation, evaluation, and reporting by
award winners. Up to $300,000 is available to support each awarded project.
CDPP Executive Director Tom Carr stated, "We are excited to use CDPP's expertise and skills to implement and evaluate community-based efforts to fight the opioid overdose epidemic; and to support and promote the partnership of law enforcement and public health agencies, which we have been doing as part of the National High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program's Overdose Response Strategy (ORS). We will use the grant funds to bolster ORS efforts to coordinate decentralized state and local attempts to assess and respond to overdoses, and to strengthen the existing law enforcement and public health partnership that is critical to addressing the opioid epidemic."
CDPP will convene an advisory board which includes the CDPP Executive Director Carr, University of Baltimore School of Public Affairs Dean Roger Hartley, and Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth, and Victim Services Executive Director Glenn Fueston, two representatives from ONDCP, and two representatives from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. The advisory board will solicit community-based proposals, develop guidelines and criteria for the proposals, and, upon receipt of the proposals, select those proposals deemed worthy of funding.
The board will solicit proposals for the following evidence-based categories:
- Drug abuse prevention
- Drug abuse early intervention
- Drug abuse treatment
- Drug abuse recovery
- Drug harm reduction
- Drug abuse policy
"These funds will expand the reach of the Center and of UB across the nation. I am very proud of the Center for Drug Policy and Prevention," Hartley said.
In the past 30 days, CDPP has received over $4 million in federal grant funds for the opioid overdose reduction initiatives, performance management efforts, and special projects.
Learn more about UB's Center for Drug Policy and Prevention.