ICYMI: “This Is an Issue That’s Clearly Bipartisan”: Congresswoman Lee Joins Local Nonprofits to Celebrate Newly-Signed Law to Prevent Youth Substance Abuse

December 15, 2025

LAS VEGAS, NV – Last week, Congresswoman Susie Lee (NV-03) joined two local nonprofits that combat addiction and substance abuse, The Phoenix and PACT Coalition, to announce and celebrate a newly-signed bipartisan law she championed to fund a critical program to support youth at risk of drug use, addiction, and overdose.

The Treatment, Recovery, Education, Awareness and Training for (TREAT) Youth Act, which Lee led with Congresswoman Jen Kiggans (VA-02), will provide resources for a critical program that expired in 2023 to support youth at risk of drug use, addiction, and overdose. The TREAT Youth Act was signed into law as part of the bipartisan SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act of 2025, which passed the House with strong bipartisan support in a 366-57 vote and unanimously passed the Senate.

Kamari Esquerra |December 8, 2025

Democrats and Republicans are coming together on a new law to fight youth substance abuse. While overdose deaths are going down nationwide, they went up more than 3% here in Nevada from December 2023 to December 2024.
“Youth are starting to experiment with drugs and alcohol much earlier, so we need early intervention in order to prevent the development of longer-term substance use disorder as they grow up,” Licensed Clinical Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor Michelle Costigan said.
According to the Substance Use and Mental Health Service Administration, 22% of Nevadans aged twelve and older have used an illicit substance in the last month. For adults ages 18 to 25, that number jumps to more than 30 percent.
“When I first discovered alcohol, which was my drug of choice, I believed that it was going to be the solution for all that failed me because of the way it made me feel temporarily,” said Stewart Powell, Program Coordinator, The Phoenix, a sober active community.
He is now recovering and helping others through their journey away from addiction and overdose. Meanwhile, a new law aims to help even more young people before they get that far.
“This is an issue that’s clearly bipartisan,” Representative Susie Lee said. “Fentanyl, substance abuse does not have an R or D behind it; it affects every community across this country, and this life-saving law will now better protect our children…”
The TREAT Youth Act, short for Treat, Recovery, Education, Awareness, and Training for Youth, focuses on prevention, treatment, and recovery support for kids most at risk.
“This is an issue that often begins in an individual’s youth, and the sooner it can be addressed, the sooner the tools can be made available to individuals,” Powell said.
The law provides grants to raise awareness, expand access to medication for opioid use disorder, and train educators and healthcare workers, including information about risks.
The legislation boosts national funding for youth substance abuse programs by 50 percent from $10 million to $15 million through 2030.

KVVU-FOX 5: ‘TREAT’ renewal provides $15 million for Nevada youth substance abuse programs

FOX5 Staff | December 8, 2025

A recent study found 22% of Nevadans 12 and older had used an illicit substance within the past 30 days.
And 32 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 24 said they’d used drugs in the past month. Those statistics point to the need for youth substance abuse programs in the Silver State, and now, funding will be available for them.
Monday morning, Representative Susie Lee came together with a coalition of advocates to celebrate the renewal of the “Treatment, Recovery, Education, Awareness and Training Act” or “TREAT.”
The measure provides $15 million dollars in funding over the next five years to pay for programs that help drug-dependent teens and young adults.
“We’ve seen far too many of our neighbors, of our children in Southern Nevada struggle with addiction and substance abuse. And it doesn’t just impact their families. It’s... them as individuals. It’s something that impacts our families. It impacts our schools. It impacts our communities,” said Rep. Lee.
The TREAT [Youth] Act expired in 2023, but Lee teamed up with GOP Representative Jen Kiggans to sponsor its renewal.
President Donald Trump recently signed it back into law.

Las Vegas Sun: Fight against fentanyl gets boost from Nevada lawmaker, Congress

Kyle Chouinard | December 10, 2025

When it comes to battling the fentanyl epidemic and opioid deaths, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are finding rare common ground.
“Everyone hears out of Washington how divided things are back in D.C., but this is an issue that’s clearly bipartisan,” said U.S. Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev. “Fentanyl, substance abuse does not have an ‘R’ or ‘D’ behind it. It affects every community across this country.”
Lee is celebrating the signing of new bipartisan legislation authorizing $64 million through 2030 to combat substance abuse among youths after the program lapsed in 2023.
The funding is part of the Treatment, Recovery, Education, Awareness and Training Youth Act, introduced by Lee, which was included in the legislation that President Donald Trump signed into law this month. It passed the House with strong bipartisan support in a 366-57 vote; a companion bill unanimously passed the U.S. Senate.
“We’ve seen far too many of our neighbors, of our children, in Southern Nevada struggle with addiction and substance abuse,” Lee said. “It’s something that impacts our families, it impacts our schools, impacts our communities.”
The wide-ranging provision allocates money for everything from programs to increase awareness around the dangers of fentanyl to increasing access to opioid use disorder medications, Lee said.
The representative said it would also provide educators and social workers “with the tools they need to intervene early and save lives.”
“We are grateful to have the ability to provide more resources, awareness and prevention efforts for the youth here in Clark County,” said Novlette Mack, a program manager for PACT Coalition, a group combating drug abuse in Southern Nevada. “We believe that early intervention is necessary for children and their caregivers to prevent problems from worsening.”
From April 2024 to April 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1,572 Nevadans died from a drug overdose. That’s a 6.8% increase from the year prior, while the rest of the United States saw a 25% drop in estimated deaths, according to the CDC.
Nevada also has one of the highest rates of illicit drug use among children 12 to 17, according to UnitedHealth’s analysis of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data, at 8.5% reporting use over a month.
Michelle Costigan, who joined Lee for the news conference, manages a sober living community center operated by the Phoenix, a national nonprofit. But when she was working as a clinician, she said it was not uncommon to hear people report first using drugs in “early adolescence.”
“I’ve witnessed firsthand the difficulties that our community members face in not only getting into treatment, but also accessing the wraparound support and ongoing care they need to sustain long-term recovery,” Costigan said.
She said the program “has the potential” to improve access to resources, calling it an “important step forward” in addressing the country’s opioid crisis.
Stewart Powell, a program coordinator with the Phoenix, said he was in recovery from substance use disorder, which started in his youth. Powell also found the legislation encouraging.
“I don’t make a habit of dwelling on my past, but I can’t help but wonder that if in my youth, my journey would have been different if I had awareness and access to the types of resources that are enabled by the legislation,” he said.
Lee said losing key pieces of federal support means a reduction in services.
The new law also gradually increases the program’s funding from $10 million for the 2026 financial year to $15 million by the fiscal year 2030.
How much of the new funding will reach Clark County and for what purposes is still up in the air. The Department of Health and Human Services will soon release a request for grant applications, and Lee was sure she would write a letter of support for local organizations.
It’s much needed in her home state.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 22% of Nevadans ages 12 and older used an illicit substance in the past month — a rate that jumps to 31.9% among those ages 18-25.
“I’m so grateful that this lifesaving law will now better protect our children and train health care providers and educators on best practices for helping youth suffering from addiction,” Lee said in a statement announcing the legislation being signed into law.

Hoodline: Fentanyl Surge Spurs $15M Lifeline For Nevada Youth

Olivia Rivera | December 9, 2025

Nevada will receive funding from the reauthorized TREAT Youth Act, a federal program aimed at helping young people with drug issues. The program will provide grants and training to schools, health clinics, and community groups, and expand access to medications for treating opioid use disorder among youth.
Health officials and recovery advocates in Nevada say the money will matter most if it reaches kids early, when use is still “trying it out” rather than full-blown addiction. The law arrives on the heels of a year of troubling local data on substance use among adolescents and young adults.
The measure was folded into the federal SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization and became law in early December, reauthorizing the Preventing Youth Overdose program through fiscal year 2030, according to Congress.gov. The legislation sets up a step-up in federal support for the youth program, with funding starting at $10,000,000 for fiscal year 2026 and rising to $15,000,000 by fiscal year 2030, as outlined in H.R.3689. In a statement to KLAS 8 News Now, Rep. Susie Lee said fentanyl and substance abuse “affect every community” and that the law will “better protect children.”
Nevada is not riding the national wave of declining overdose deaths. Provisional federal data show the state saw a small uptick in overdose fatalities even as the overall U.S. total dropped, a pattern experts partially attribute to fentanyl contamination in the illegal drug supply, as reported by Nevada Independent.
Federal behavioral health surveys also flag elevated substance use among Nevada’s youth and young adults. The Behavioral Health Barometer for Nevada reports that roughly 22 percent of residents age 12 and older said they had used illicit drugs recently, with people ages 18 to 25 reporting rates above 30 percent, as per SAMHSA.
The reauthorization opens up grant opportunities for schools, health systems and community organizations to run awareness campaigns, train teachers and clinicians, and expand access to medications for opioid use disorder for adolescents and young adults. Implementation and grants will run through HHS and SAMHSA, and local public health officials say coordination across agencies will be key if the dollars are going to reach youth before serious harm occurs, a point raised by Southern Nevada Health District leaders and reported by The Nevada Independent. Community hubs such as The Phoenix, located at 3638 E. Sunset Road, #110 in Las Vegas, say they plan to pursue funding and grow their programs if federal and state resources make that possible.

The Preventing Youth Overdose: Treatment, Recovery, Education, Awareness and Training program was last authorized under the 2018 Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act. This legislation represented the largest ever investment in overdose prevention programs by funding efforts to improve care, including efforts to reduce barriers to all levels of the care continuum and allocate resources to states and providers for the purposes of preventing and treating substance use disorder.

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Issues: Students & Education Health Care