U.S. - What Could Happen If Trump Formally Declares Opioids A National Emergency

[S.J.B.]

What Could Happen If Trump Formally Declares Opioids A National Emergency
Alison Kodjak
NPR
August 11th, 2017

Opioid abuse is a crisis, but is it an emergency?

That's the question gripping Washington after President Trump's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis recommended that the president declare the epidemic a national emergency.

On Tuesday, before getting a briefing on the commission report, Trump called it "a tremendous problem."

"We're going to get it taken care of," he said.

Later that day, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price backed off from the need for an emergency declaration.

Read the full story here.

 

[PerpetualAnhedonic]

Hmm the article covers some of the positive possible outcomes..... But what this screams to me, louder than anything else, is drug war expansion and additional law enforcement funding.....which weren't even mentioned in the article.

 

[cj]

Sounds like a whole bunch of words to me.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

we all know it will mean increased drug sentencing, increased DEA funding, and the continued eradication of opioids as treatment for pain in medicine.

All things which have been proven to increase OD rates and drug use.


I don't see anti-drug conservative ideology taking the back seat to fact-based approaches. It would be an admission of being wrong, and we know thats never going to happen.

 

[CfZrx]

we all know it will mean the continued eradication of opioids as treatment for pain in medicine which has been proven to increase OD rates and drug use.

yikes dude! i hope not. maybe this is phase 1 of legal thc!