Trump declares opioid epidemic a national emergency
After administration downplayed problem, president accepts an urgent recommendation from a national commission he appointed.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he was preparing to officially declare the United States’ worsening epidemic of opioid overdoses as a national emergency, accepting an urgent recommendation from a national commission he appointed.
“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency,” Trump told reporters before a security briefing at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. “It’s a national emergency.”
The president’s commission concluded last month that such a declaration was its “first and most urgent recommendation.” Led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Trump’s onetime presidential rival, the commission said such a declaration would help direct more resources and attention on the crisis plaguing communities across the country.
Tom Price, secretary of health and human services, told reporters Tuesday that the crisis “can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency, although all things are on the table for the president.”
Since then, Trump has come under criticism from Democrats, who accused him of failing to adequately respond to the growing number of overdoses.
In his comments to reporters Thursday, Trump made clear that he was drafting paperwork and intended to issue a formal declaration that the opioid crisis was a national emergency.
“We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency,” he said. “It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had.”
Trump has repeatedly promised that the federal government will confront the spreading crisis of opioid overdoses. In 2015, officials said, 33,000 of the 52,000 overdose deaths nationwide were the result of the use of opioids like heroin and fentanyl.
After a briefing from health officials this week, Trump called the issue of opioid overdoses “a tremendous problem in our country,” and he said that he hoped that “we get it taken care of as well as it can be taken care of.”
The opioid commission recommended declaring an emergency under the Stafford Act, which is usually reserved for natural disasters, or under the Public Health Service Act, which also activates federal assistance to states but is carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Declaring an emergency could allow states and cities that are hard hit by the opioid crisis to receive federal disaster relief funds.
“If you declare a state of emergency, you can move federal resources more easily between programmatic areas,” said Michael Fraser, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Six states — Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts and Virginia — have declared emergencies because of the opioid crisis. The 21st Century Cures Act, which Congress approved last year, is sending states $1 billion over two years for opioid addiction treatment and prevention, but experts say it is far short of what is needed. Ohio alone spent nearly $1 billion last year on addressing the opioid epidemic.