Declaration is first step in battle

PRESIDENT TRUMP is declaring the opioid crisis a “national emergency.”

Days after hearing from a White House Opioid Commission, the President said he’s heeding its call for increased federal action to combat an epidemic of overdoses from prescription opioid painkillers such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and morphine.

At a Bedminster, N.J., news conference with Vice President Pence on Thursday, Trump said he planned to spend a lot of time and money on addressing the opioid problem.

“The opioid crisis is an emergency and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency,” Trump told reporters. “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.”

A total of 52,404 people died of fatal overdoses in 2015 — a rate of 16.3 per 100,000. Of those, more than 33,000 were attributed to opioids, including prescription painkillers as well as heroin and the even more potent fentanyl.

Experts predict a marked rise in the 2016 figures due to increasing numbers of prescription painkiller users turning to heroin and fentanyl, which are cheaper and more deadly.

Fatal overdoses hit a record 19.9 per 100,000 people in the third quarter last year, a steep jump from 16.7 in 2015, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

“There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years,” Trump said. “And I have to say this in all fairness, this is a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem.”

The bipartisan commission, created in March and led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, made several recommendations including the development of a national prevention strategy, improvement in treatment programs and a reduction in the supply of heroin, fentanyl and counterfeit pills.

But the first and most important step, the members said, was to declare the crisis a national emergency.

Such a declaration would free up resources and allow the President to empower federal agencies to push Congress for funding to fight addiction, remove barriers to treatment, expand treatment facilities and supply cops with antioverdose drugs.

“The opioid epidemic we are facing is unparalleled,” the commission said in a letter accompanying its report to Trump.

“The average American would likely be shocked to know that drug overdoses now kill more people than gun homicides and car crashes combined.”

Over the last 13 years, more than 183,000 people have died from opioid overdoses, half of which involved a prescription drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts said Trump’s declaration is an important first step.

“It means they are willing to spend more money and make sure people will be able to get treatment,” said Indra Cidambi, medical director of the New Jersey-based Center for Network Therapy, “It’s a good thing if they’re going to spend it in a appropriate manner. It’s not a good thing if they spend it on the system that’s been failing people already.

Cidambi said officials need to remove criminality from the equation to give addicts a real chance to get their lives back together.

Six states — Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Alaska and Virginia — have announced their own opioid-related public health emergencies in recent years.

Just two days earlier, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price indicated that declaring a national emergency wasn’t necessary because the administration was already empowered to fight the epidemic.

A final version of the commission’s report is expected to be sent to the President later this year.