Scout’s honor: Nation needs action from Trump on opioids
President Trump should return to West Virginia and give a speech for which no one has to apologize.
In July, Trump addressed the Boy Scouts’ national jamboree. After declaring that he didn’t want to talk about politics, Trump talked about almost nothing else. The Scouts’ president issued “sincere apologies.”
The jamboree took place near Glen Jean, W.V., which is in Fayette County. Fayette ranks among the top 20 counties in America for fatal overdoses involving prescription painkillers. In 2015, West Virginia had the nation’s highest opioid overdose death rate.
Trump could have gone to West Virginia and announced a plan to attack the opioid crisis. Instead, he nominated as drug czar a congressman who sponsored legislation that makes it harder for the Drug Enforcement Agency to track suspicious drug shipments like those that went to West Virginia.
After The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” broke that story, Tom Marino withdrew. Nine days later, Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency but not a national emergency. The latter designation would have called for the government actually to spend money.
Trump hasn’t picked someone to replace Marino. Congress is rushing to give corporations and the wealthy a tax cut they don’t need. Meanwhile, the opioid crisis grows.
A report last week from Florida’s medical examiners showed a 35 percent increase in opioid-related deaths between 2015 and 2016. For the second straight year, Palm Beach County led the state in heroin-related deaths. The body count more than doubled, to 571.
“The opioid epidemic remains driven by prescription pharmaceutical opioids,” Nova Southeastern University epidemiologist Jim Hall told the Sun Sentinel. “We still have a major prescription opioid problem as much as we have a heroin problem.”
Drugs killed 59,000 Americans last year — more than were killed in Vietnam. According to a United Nations report, we have 4 percent of the world’s population and 27 percent of the drug overdose deaths.
Inaction is especially frustrating because in a divided America the opioid crisis draws bipartisan concern. In a new Pew Research survey, 78 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents considered the issue a “major public health problem.” Among Republican and Republicanleaning respondents, it was 77 percent.
The scourge is ravaging white, rural communities where Trump won big. In two decades, the overdose rate among whites has more than tripled and is much higher than the rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans.
New research also blames opioids for much of the decline in labor force participation by men between the ages of 25 and 54. A Princeton economist found that almost one-third of “prime age” men who aren’t working take prescription painkillers daily.
South Florida cities like Delray Beach fight the resultant influx of sober home operators who churn through patients to bilk insurers. Such abuses harm those in recovery, plague neighborhoods and strain local budgets.
Delray Beach had hoped that the Legislature would require sober houses — known as recovery residences — to get state certification. The city cited testimony to a Palm Beach County grand jury that following national recovery residence standards can mean a 70 percent success rate.
Mayor Cary Glickstein, however, said the city has “received pushback from Tallahassee, although we have not seen a coherent argument against our proposed legislation.” Delray Beach’s cause also will suffer from the resignation of state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, after reports of his affair with a lobbyist. Clemens had sponsored previous sober home bills.
If Trump and Congress won’t act, perhaps state attorneys general could sue drugmakers and distributors. Forty-six states sued tobacco makers for the public costs of treating smokers. A $246 billion settlement resulted.
Cigarettes are unsafe even when used as directed. Drugmakers would argue that abuse of their products created the crisis. Ample reporting, however, shows that the maker of OxyContin knew that the pills didn’t last the advertised 12 hours.
With an opioid crackdown, which he could announce in West Virginia, Trump also could bash two of his favorite targets. The fentanyl that has turned heroin so deadlier comes from Mexico, using ingredients from China.
The Boy Scouts award merit badges for citizenship in the community and nation. If Trump obsessed over opioid deaths the way he obsesses over Hillary Clinton, he could set a much better example for the Scouts.
Email Randy Schultz: randy@bocamag.com