Since 2001, the state has cut $11 million in alcohol and other drug treatment services. In next year's budget, Gov. Mitt Romney wants to cut an additional $2 million.

As a result of the cuts, the state will lose 13 percent of the $34.3 million it was expecting to receive from SAMHSA for the upcoming budget year.

Treatment-center executives said the reduced funding would prove devastating as the state tries to address a heroin epidemic and Massachusetts faces an increase in deaths from other opioids like OxyContin.

"The potential loss of another $9 million in substance-abuse funding would be disastrous to the Commonwealth," said John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. "Our treatment and prevention efforts have already been significantly crippled and the prospect of facing millions of dollars of additional cuts would bring our substance-abuse system to its knees."

Mark Weber, a spokesman for SAMHSA, acknowledged that the $9 million in cuts would be detrimental to drug users.

"As much as it may pain us to do this, it's the law, and we'll be carrying it out," said Weber.

State public-health authorities are appealing for a reprieve. Last year, the federal government accepted the state's economic-hardship argument and issued a waiver. But his year, a SAMHSA executive said, the state failed to prove that it was facing "extraordinary economic conditions" that warranted an exemption.

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