The Daily Populous Thursday January 15th, 2026 day edition
Authored by rollcall.com and submitted by FreshlyStarted

A day after the Department of Health and Human Services implemented a late-night rollback of $2 billion in mental health and substance use funding, an administration official confirmed late Wednesday that the grants are now being restored.

The cancellation of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration funding had blindsided grantees and sent shock waves through organizations that provide anti-drug and mental health services.

About 2,000 grantees who rely on these funds to operate were informed by form letters Tuesday night that funding was being cut off, according to sources familiar with discussions. They were notified of the funding changes in letters that cite “non-alignment with SAMHSA priorities.”

The cutbacks primarily affected discretionary grant programs that often enjoy bipartisan support. President Donald Trump has supported them in the past, notably signing a wide-ranging 2018 opioid prevention and treatment law during his first term and its reauthorization just last month.

It started to become clear late Wednesday that these cuts were going to be reversed.

“My understanding is that there has been an intervention at the White House,” Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations ranking member Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. “It might be a one-day issue.”

An official who wasn’t authorized to speak on the matter said the grant cancellations “are being rescinded.”

The issue in the past has been programs that aligned with Trump priorities.

SAMHSA, the agency tasked with mental health and addiction issues, has faced sweeping changes under the second Trump administration. HHS has gutted staff as part of efforts to reorganize the agency under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s flagship Administration for a Healthy America, which has moved away from efforts to use harm reduction to mitigate drug-related deaths.

Many organizations that receive funding modified their missions to comply.

Kathryn Cates-Wessel, CEO of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, is the principal investigator for two national SAMHSA grants that had been targeted for the cuts. She said the organization removed all language in their materials related to harm reduction or underrepresented or minority groups to comply with executive orders and communicated that to the agency.

The cuts had also drawn criticism from lawmakers.

“The result of these SAMHSA cuts will be a death sentence for individuals who most need support and care,” Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., who has focused his efforts in Congress on substance use issues, said in a statement.

Another grantee that had been targeted for cuts is the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, created to increase access to services for children and families who experience or witness traumatic events, another program that has had bipartisan support.

Jenifer Wood Maze, co-director of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, said she had been hearing that most current grantees in the network received the same notice of immediate termination.

“Many have had other child mental health grants from SAMHSA terminated as well, so the impact is really huge. This network has been operating and growing steadily for 25 years, so this is coming as a shock to us,” she said prior to the cuts’ reversal late Wednesday.

Aris Folley and Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.

cozmckitty on January 15th, 2026 at 02:48 UTC »

This would have just been overturned in court later. Also ICE just shot someone else in Minneapolis.

defroach84 on January 15th, 2026 at 02:37 UTC »

Now they'll claim they saved mental healthcare....

Cradenz on January 15th, 2026 at 02:37 UTC »

Don’t care. Get these people out of office