Critics Slam Trump's 'Substance-Free' Plan to Address Opioid Crisis

While President Donald Trump’s briefing on the current opioid epidemic in the U.S. on Tuesday was dominated by his aggressive threat to respond to North Korea’s nuclear development program with “fire and fury,” the president’s comments on the opioid crisis were also met with concern by drug policy experts—as Trump indicated that he would not follow the recommendations of his own opioid crisis task force.

With a focus on the Reagan-era idea of “just say no to drugs” and threats to meet the crisis with tougher law enforcement measures, critics quickly denounced the president’s remarks and the approach they signal.

Bill Piper, senior director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told CNN that Trump would find more success “focusing on the treatment side of things,” noting that stricter policing of drug abuse “has never worked. That is what has been tried for decades and it has failed for every drug it has applied to, including alcohol during Prohibition.”

The essential problem with Trump’s approach, Piper added, is that it “makes it look like they are doing something even when they are not.”

The president declined to declare the opioid epidemic, which kills 142 people per day, a national emergency, as the bipartisan Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis urged him to in July. The Commission wrote (pdf) to Trump saying an official declaration “would force Congress to focus on funding” and “awaken every American to this simple fact: if this scourge has not found you or your family yet, without bold action by everyone, it soon will.”

The group also asked Trump to “rapidly increase treatment capacity” for Americans addicted to opioids by granting waivers to all 50 states, allowing them to cover mental health treatment under Medicaid.

Opioid abuse has been on the rise since the early 2000s, following aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies that assured doctors and patients that prescription opioid painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin were not habit-forming. Between 1999 and 2008, the opioid overdose rate in the U.S. quadrupled. Heroin abuse was also on the rise during this period, as many Americans turned to the cheaper opioid after being prescribed drugs.