Drug Recovery is Now US National Policy. Campuses Need to Step Up

In late January, the White House announced the Great American Recovery Initiative, a new federal effort to coordinate prevention, treatment, harm reduction and addiction recovery support across public systems. The initiative signals a long-overdue recognition that addiction recovery is not peripheral to public health: it is central to it.

Colleges and universities, which educate and house millions of young adults during the highest-risk years for substance use disorders and overdose, must be part of this national response. Yet current practices show that higher education is lagging behind.