Trump officials block federal grants for drug test strips, sparking backlash

Federal grant recipients can no longer use SAMHSA money for fentanyl and xylazine test strips, a restriction that is leaving local programs with fewer ways to warn people when street drugs are contaminated. The shift tracks with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets.

On April 24, 2026, SAMHSA updated its funding guidance to bar grant recipients from buying or distributing drug-checking supplies, including fentanyl and xylazine test strips, or other items and services that facilitate illicit drug use. That followed a July 29, 2025 Dear Colleague letter that called harm reduction practices incompatible with federal law.

The United States remained in an evolving overdose crisis driven by highly potent synthetic opioids, including illicitly made fentanyl, and adulterants such as xylazine and medetomidine. CDC provisional data showed overdose deaths fell 26% in the 12 months ending February 2025, after more than a million overdose deaths over the previous decade.

On May 8, 2026, Senators Edward J. Markey, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Tina Smith pressed SAMHSA to reverse the guidance, arguing it defied evidence that harm reduction and life-saving tools reduce deaths and infections. That same day, Representative Jimmy Panetta led a House letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opposing the end of funding for illicit drug test strips, while Senator Ron Wyden led 10 Senate colleagues in calling for the administration to restore federal support.

Pennsylvania law had long blocked people who use drugs from testing for fentanyl and avoiding overdoses, and a 2024 survey of harm reduction laws found most states still rely on punitive approaches, with many criminalizing devices used to consume drugs or check them for adulterants. SAMHSA announced the first-ever harm reduction grants in 2022, totaling $30 million, and later announced more than $1.5 billion in State and Tribal Opioid Response grants in September 2025.