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At around ** billion U.S. dollars, the requested total U.S. drug control budget for 2026 was significantly lower than in previous years. This was mostly because for several agencies, the budget requests had still to be defined, as of the time of publication of the report. This statistic depicts the total federal drug control spending in the United States from FY 2012 to FY 2026, in million U.S. dollars.

U.S. drug control spending

In the United States, around half of the requested budget for federal drug control spending for FY 2025 was requested for treatment of substance use disorders; the remaining budget was distributed amongst various governmental departments for prevention, interdiction, and law enforcement. In particular, the largest amount of drug control treatment funding in FY 2025 within the Department of Health and Human Services was spent by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, followed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 

Drug control and the opioid epidemic

The misuse of prescription drugs and the opioid epidemic are a major focus of U.S. drug control strategies and spending. In the U.S., the top controlled prescription drugs distributed are hydrocodone and oxycodone, both potentially addictive opioid analgesics that can be misused and sold illegally. In 2010-2019, efforts to reduce illegal sales of opioid narcotics in the U.S. have managed to reduce the amount of opioids diverted from the legal market by over half. Unfortunately, misusing opioids and synthetic variants such as heroin can be life-threatening; death rates due to opioid overdoses are continuing to rise.