The money will also be used, she said, to increase counseling services, boost overdose prevention, provide medication- assisted treatment for people who can’t afford it and expand the state’s prescription monitoring database. All doctors in the state will have to check with the database before prescribing the highly-addictive medication. “This money helps us to pilot new programs that we can consider for best practices for South Carolina,” Goldsby said. “This funding is important for innovation.” The federal funding follows recent moves by some South Carolina lawmakers to set up a new committee to study the ongoing epidemic. They have proposed spending $1.5 million to help addiction treatment efforts. It also comes at a time when President Donald Trump, along with former South Carolina congressman and new White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, have proposed slashing 95 percent of the budget for the Office of National Drug Control Policy — one of the federal agencies seeking to curtail the ongoing epidemic.
The federal funding follows recent moves by some South Carolina lawmakers to set up a new committee to study the ongoing epidemic.
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