In a landmark plan to help solve the opioid epidemic, the White House is granting states across the country over a billion dollars in total to help fight the problem.
White House officials told Boston 25 News anchor Blair Miller they've already started to see change across the nation as the number of people abusing opioids has dropped.
More than $35 million will come to Massachusetts, where officials tell us the money will go toward community and health centers. Many of these centers are located in the Boston area, where each one is getting hundreds of dollars.
Earlier this month, in the Boston 25 News program Ending the Epidemic, Blair Miller showed how some think our answer to fighting the opioid crisis is in Portugal, where the number of deaths related to heroin overdoses plunged significantly.
Through public health programs, the country with once had hundreds of heroin-related deaths a year now sees fewer than 30 a year.
The White House says the efforts in Portugal, while successful, would be hard to achieve in the states, mostly due in part to the scale of the problem, which is much deeper where an estimated 72,000 opioid-related deaths were registered last year.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan welcomes the grants from the White House, saying the more funding, the better, saying she hopes the money will make a real impact.
"Its primarily directed at medication assisted treatment which, for many people, has been a great way to get them to recovery.
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