look at this at samhsa. our chief medical officer is already looking at what we can do for transitional age youth. that is something we can work on over the next be in months, and we will make something public about what we might be able to do to better help americans suffering th theseisorders in that age group and overall. we are very fortunate that appropriationsed in the 21st century cures act that samhsa has gotten out to the states and communities, and we are in the process of ramping up treatment for opioid use disorders. we are also using significant amounts of that funding for prevention interventions and recovery services. if you know someone who is a heroin user or you are someone who has a problem, please look to your community for help. we will provide those resources and continue to do what we need to do to help americans with mental and substance abuse disorders. a few for your attention, and i will now move to introduce to baum, the acting director of ondcp. they lead and coordinate the devel

thank you samhsa. thank you for your leadership. i'm with share, and one of the things you mentioned was evps, and my question is two fold. first self-help support groups are an evidence based practice that are greatly under utilized by our systems of care. when we talk about how to use evps, is there an effort to increase our connection for systems of care through self-help support groups that are community based, that are alternativemizech and second, in l.a. county we had a great difficulty rolling out evps. because one of the things that happened is they became large profit centers for agencies and became incredibly expensive to rollout and difficult to adhere to fidelity as more people were using them. so how do we address those things? >> yes, so thank you for that question. it's a tall order. evidence-based practices, we have the information that we need. we know what we need to do, and too often they are not used by many types of programs. one of the things that -- that we can do within federal agencies is to provide some ov

one is stop the ridiculous wasteful spending at samhsa. if they can fund $400,000 ebsites and going to a lexurious hotel, they can certainly do something that puts providers there so children can change the trajectory of their lives. i've just known too many families who have suffered through this. and i hope as members vote on this they remember those families' names in their district and they decide this is way to send a signal that we can make a big difference in the lives of many. with that i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the question is on the -- the gentleman from oklahoma. mr. cole: i simply wanted to yield back my time, mr. chairman. the chair: thank you. the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. now the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from pennsylvania. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. he amendment is agreed to. purr subte to clause 6, rule -- pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on th

and it's to come from the samhsa account, not new spending. let me describe what assisted outpatient treatment is. understanding that there's about 60 million americans with mental illness and that 10 million have severe mental illness, it's important to note that our prisons are filled with people who have mental illness. on some levels, 60% to 80% of people in jail have a mental illness. that is no place to be treating someone. but unfortunately they may have a crime they committed and in many cases is it could be vague ransy, it could be other issues -- vagrancy, it could be other issues too. but a person with mental illness is 10 times more likely to be in prison than to be in a hospital bed. we don't have enough hospital bed beds. 90% -- beds. 90% of the psychiatric hospital beds in this country have been closed down since the 1950's. now we need 100,000 more. instead what we do as a society, we throw them in prison. a few years ago when new york passed kendra's law when a young woman was killed by a mentally ill person, they realized, ha

so you talk about cutting samhsa which is $300 million and we know, and i know the chairman knows there is a connection between opioids and mental health. we know it, and you start the programs that we have now classified as a nation and as a national emergency and we starve those programs that can do the most good and there are also other areas. >> i'll reclaim my time in the interest of time so that we can go and vote. i said yesterday and i repeat here, what we are doing is a chaotic process inside all of this stuff right here that people have read and are going to read. one day the light will shine on them and the process that we are undertaking will call us to know there are things within it that are harmful. i appreciate my friend saying it is an opening round of negotiation, but somewhere along the lines, everybody in this body needs to understand one thing. we are afraid to use the word tax reform and lose tax cuts and none of us say what needs to be said. we need a sensible tax policy that includes the necessary increases from those who can afford those increases in order to be