Key Points

  • SAMHSA announced $40 million in new grant funding across eight behavioral health programs on June 11, 2026, as part of the federal Great American Recovery Initiative. The announcement arrives alongside the agency’s own reported staffing reductions and pending budget decisions.
  • A University of Cincinnati study found that embedding addiction treatment in a primary care training clinic improved resident physicians’ confidence in diagnosing substance use disorders, adjusting buprenorphine dosing, and providing harm reduction counseling.
  • According to the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 48.4 million Americans age 12 and older had a substance use disorder in the past year, while fewer than one in four received treatment.
  • New research published in the journal Addiction found that people who use cannabis through multiple methods (smoking, vaping, and edibles together, for example) show a stronger association with cannabis use disorder regardless of product type or THC content.
  • A Mayo Clinic study of 21 patients found a 0% heavy alcohol relapse rate within one year using the PACT protocol after liver transplant, compared to a historical rate of about 25%. The researchers note the sample was small and further study is needed.

Addiction News Weekly Episode 1.4

In This Episode

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Addiction News Weekly by Rehab.com, where we break down the biggest stories in addiction, recovery, and public health. This week: new federal grant money, where treatment is actually starting to happen, and what the latest science says about cannabis. We start with federal grant money.

SAMHSA Announces $40 Million in New Behavioral Health Funding

On June 11th, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration announced $40 million in funding opportunities across eight grant programs.1 According to SAMHSA, the grants are meant to prevent substance use disorders, strengthen the behavioral health workforce, and support work on mental illness and suicide prevention. The funding falls under a broader federal recovery initiative announced earlier this year.

Some context on that number. $40 million is real, but it arrives at a time when SAMHSA itself has reported staffing reductions and faces proposed budget cuts for the coming fiscal year. So the same week brings new grant dollars and opens questions about the agency’s longer-term capacity.

In our first episode, our medical officer warned that a lot of recent progress was leaning on temporary grants and emergency funding. That concern has not gone away. New money is just one piece of the access problem.

Embedding Addiction Treatment in Primary Care Training

Where care happens is another piece. A study from the University of Cincinnati looked at what changes when addiction treatment is built into a primary care training clinic instead of being sent off to a separate specialty center.2 Researchers put attending physicians, clinical pharmacists, addiction fellows, and internal medicine residents together as one team.

In the clinic’s first 15 weeks, they recorded 73 patient visits, with opioid use disorder and alcohol use disorder among the most common diagnoses. The most interesting finding was about the doctors themselves. Among the residents surveyed before and after the rotation, those who responded reported real gains in confidence in diagnosing substance use disorders, in starting and adjusting buprenorphine, and in providing harm reduction counseling.

That matters because the gap is significant. According to the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 48.4 million Americans age 12 and older had a substance use disorder, and fewer than one in four received treatment.3 Training more clinicians to treat addiction where people already go is one way to start closing that gap.

What Multimodal Cannabis Use Means for Disorder Risk

For the research side this week, we asked Rehab.com Medical Officer Dr. Sylvie Stacy to walk us through a new study on cannabis. A study was just published in the journal Addiction, and it used data from a national survey from 2022 to 2023 to compare how people use cannabis: various methods like smoking, vaping, edibles, and dabbing, as well as using more than one of those methods, and comparing that against rates of cannabis use disorder.4

The findings in this article really hit on one of the issues that I and my colleagues see in clinic all the time, and that is misguided perceptions of the safety of different routes and modalities of cannabis use. Probably all of our listeners are aware that the number of different cannabis products has really multiplied in recent years as legalization spreads, and the way people use cannabis is changing too. There is a common assumption that I have witnessed in my patients that switching from smoking to an edible or a vape is automatically a safer, healthier choice, but we know that is not true.

And this study shows that safety is really a lot more complicated than just looking at the product type or the amount of THC that it contains. One thing that really stands out in this study is the risk associated with multimodal use. The data shows that individuals who consume cannabis in multiple ways, like smoking and using edibles or smoking and vaping, have a much stronger association with cannabis use disorder.

Now, I do not treat very many patients who come to me specifically for problematic cannabis use, but it is very common for my patients seeing me for other substance use issues to also be using cannabis. And sometimes it is not really causing problems for them, but in many cases it is. So I do try to at least ask about their use and whether they perceive it to be problematic, and I try to gauge if they have a good understanding of what the risks of cannabis use are.

I have definitely noticed a pattern. Patients who rotate through different products often, or who regularly use different product types with different modes of administration, they often end up escalating their overall intake. They might smoke with friends, use a vape pen at work for convenience, and then take an edible at night for sleep. And that constant exposure across different settings makes it really easy for the drug to essentially get woven into every facet of their life. And that drives up their tolerance and it can lead to dependence. And of course, with dependence, we can get withdrawal if the person stops using cannabis or cuts back significantly on their use. And that withdrawal is what leads them into a cycle of using again.

So the results of this study align with what I have seen in the real world, and they are also important for a more formal recognition of this issue so that we can learn more about it and what it means, and hopefully identify how this impacts clinical practice or policymaking or public health interventions. I do want to say this study provides just a snapshot in time and it shows a clear correlation, but it cannot prove that using multiple methods of cannabis actually causes cannabis use disorder. It is possible that individuals who already have a more severe disorder simply seek out more ways to consume the drug.

But from a public health standpoint, my takeaway is this: no single cannabis product is inherently safe or free from risk. Cannabis use disorder is a real diagnosable condition and it is highly treatable. Anyone who feels like their use is getting out of hand should really talk to a doctor about their patterns of use and how it is affecting their life. Based on this study, when I ask my patients about their cannabis use, I have started making it a point to ask them if they use cannabis in multiple formats. And if so, I may take an extra minute or two to really dive a bit deeper into the subject, or assess them for whether they may actually have cannabis use disorder.

A New Protocol Achieves Zero Alcohol Relapses After Liver Transplant

One more research story, and it is a striking one. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic published findings in the Liver Transplantation journal on a new program built to prevent alcohol relapse after a liver transplant.5 Among the 21 patients who followed it, none returned to heavy alcohol use within a year, compared with a historical relapse rate of about 25%. The senior author, Dr. Channa Jayasekera, called the result encouraging while also noting that the sample group was small.

The program is called PACT and the idea is to be proactive instead of waiting for relapse to happen. It combines anti-craving medication, frequent follow-up, alcohol metabolite testing, and a coordinated team of transplant surgeons, addiction counselors, psychiatrists, and pharmacists.

This matters because alcohol-associated liver disease is now the leading reason for liver transplants in the United States and a relapse afterward can be dangerous. As Dr. Jayasekera put it, a transplant can treat the liver disease but does not treat the alcohol use disorder. The study treats that disorder as a chronic condition that needs ongoing care.

  • A new report renewed attention on the risks of nitrous oxide, the inhalant sometimes sold in retail shops, after a woman developed severe neurological damage.
  • Researchers looking at gaming disorder in children with ADHD found a link to family stress.
  • Another study examined elevated addiction risk among unemployed men. Links to all of these are on Rehab.com.

Conclusion

If you or someone you love is looking for treatment, Rehab.com lists thousands of verified centers across the country and free, confidential support is available at any time. And those are the top stories in the news. For more, visit Rehab.com. We will be back next week. I’m Kay, and thank you for listening.

Sources in This Episode

  1. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA Announces $40 Million in Funding Opportunities to Prevent Addiction, and Address Child Trauma, Suicide, Mental Illness. HHS.gov. June 11, 2026. https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/samhsa-announces-funding-opportunities-prevent-addiction-child-trauma-suicide-mental-illness.html. Accessed June 23, 2026.
  2. University of Cincinnati. UC clinic boosts substance use disorder care and resident training. University of Cincinnati News. May 2026. https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2026/05/n21409116.html. Accessed June 23, 2026.
  3. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. SAMHSA; 2025.
  4. Baral R, et al. Associations between modes of cannabis use and cannabis use disorder: Evidence from the 2022 to 2023 United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Addiction. 2026. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70474.
  5. Mayo Clinic News Network. New post-liver transplant protocol results in 0% heavy alcohol relapse rate. Mayo Clinic News Network. June 3, 2026. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-study-finds-new-post-liver-transplant-protocol-results-in-0-heavy-alcohol-relapse-rate/. Accessed June 23, 2026.
Dr. Sylvie Stacy
Medically Reviewed by Dr. Sylvie Stacy