President Donald Trump has spoken out on the opioid epidemic.
“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency,” he said August 10 before a security briefing at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to The New York Times. “It’s a national emergency.”
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How eloquent.
He continued: “We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency. It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had. You know, when I was growing up, they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs. There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years.”
The same day, the White House released a statement on the subject:
Building upon the recommendations in the interim report from the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, President Donald J. Trump has instructed his Administration to use all appropriate emergency and other authorities to respond to the crisis caused by the opioid epidemic.
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Trump’s comments are a bit surprising, given that on August 8, HHS Secretary Tom Price belittled the need for declaring it an emergency.
“We believe that, at this point, that the resources we need or the focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crisis at this point can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency, although all things are on the table for the president,” Price said, according to NYT.
Opioid abuse has undoubtedly become a problem in the United States.
According to the CDC, over 15,000 Americans died from prescription opioid overdoses in 2015.
At the end of July, the Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis issued a report claiming its “first and most urgent recommendation” is that Trump declare the crisis a national emergency.
Some are hoping telemedicine can play a role in solving the nation’s substance abuse problem. Libba Baney, a principal with Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, told Politico:
Telemedicine prescribing of anti-addiction medicines is especially important as a means of responding to the opioid epidemic as there are more patients in need of treatment than there are providers available in-person to treat. Telemedicine could make a big difference in getting patients access to treatment faster, saving lives.
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