Trump budget proposes elimination of ‘ drug czar’

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is proposing to gut the budget of the White House “drug czar” by 95 percent, effectively eliminating the decades-old Office of National Drug Control Policy, the lead federal agency responsible for managing and coordinating drug policy, according to a memo that its acting director sent Friday to agency employees.

The draft budget plan comes as the nation is struggling with an escalating opioid epidemic. Ending opioid addiction was a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and he drew support from many of the rural areas and small working-class towns hit hardest by the drug crisis. In March, President Trump commissioned a new addiction task force to help combat the opioid crisis, tapping his friend and former rival New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to lead the fight.

But in an email sent to full-time employees, Richard Baum, the acting director of the office, said the administration’s proposed cuts for the fiscal year that begins in October “reflects a nearly 95 percent” reduction in the agency’s budget. The proposed $364 million cut would leave a budget of just $24 million and eliminate its two major programs.

Baum called the cuts “drastic” and “frankly heartbreaking.”

Roughly half the office’s staff, or 33 full-time employees, would be eliminated, the memo said.

“That budget wouldn’t pay the heating bill at the Pentagon,” said Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general who headed the office under President Bill Clinton between 1996 and 2001. “It sends a terrible message. Why send this bizarre political signal in the middle of what is without question a major healthcare crisis in America? It’s very strange.”

Ohio’s two senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman, were none too happy, either.

Said Brown: “If these reports are true, President Trump will need to explain himself to the families whose loved ones have been taken by this epidemic and to the Ohio coroner’s offices who’ve had to bring in extra refrigerated trucks to keep up with the overdose deaths in our state.”

Said Portman: “I’ve known and worked with our drug czars for more than 20 years, and this agency is critical to our efforts to combat drug abuse in general, and this opioid epidemic in particular. This office supports the Drug Free Communities Act, legislation I authored in 1997 which has provided more than $1 billion to community drug coalitions around the country over the last 20 years, as well as the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, which has helped states like Ohio that are ground zero for this problem.

“We have a heroin and prescription-drug crisis in this country, and we should be supporting efforts to reverse this tide, not proposing drastic cuts to those who serve on the front lines of this epidemic.”

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked about the reports Friday, said: “When it comes to the opioid epidemic, the president has been extremely clear that this is a top priority for him. I certainly wouldn’t get ahead of conversations about the budget. We haven’t had a final document, and I think it would be ridiculous to comment on a draft version of something at this point.”

The White House has said it is working to eliminate areas of duplication and inefficiency. Budget officials already have proposed to do away with numerous programs across the government, including some that congressional Republicans support.