WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today announced three federal grants totaling $375,000 to educate the next generation about drugs and prevent drug abuse among North Dakota’s youth.

“Since my time as North Dakota’s Attorney General in the 1990s, I have seen how the meth epidemic ruins lives, and today it is coming back with a vengeance while opioid abuse is wreaking havoc on too many of our communities,” said Heitkamp. “The best way we can stop drug abuse is it make sure that folks don’t start using them to begin with, and that means we need to educate North Dakota’s young people about the perils of drug abuse. Federal funding like the Drug Free Communities Support Program announced today will help kids in Grand Forks, Wahpeton, and Fargo prevent abuse and deaths from drug abuse.”

The federal grants are distributed as follows:

• Grand Forks Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition: $125,000 in new federal funding.

• Youth Empowered for Success (YES), Wahpeton: $125,000 in new federal funding.

• Impact Foundation, Fargo: $125,000 in continuing federal funds.

These federal funds are made available through Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program. This program works to prevent our nation’s youth from becoming drug addicted. Heitkamp has pushed back against the administration’s proposal to slash federal funding by 95 percent for the ONDCP. The proposed cut to ONDCP funding would have eliminate both the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program as well as the DFC program, through which several North Dakota communities are receiving federal funding. In February 2018, Heitkamp joined a bipartisan group of senators in urging the administration and key Senate Appropriations Committee leaders to avoid slashing ONDCP funding.

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