Trump’s ‘Big Dent’ in the Opioid Crisis
Amid the Russia probe and the campaign rallies and the high-profile trade wars, the business of government grinds on. President Donald Trump made that clear at the White House on Wednesday after condemning the person who had mailed explosives to his Democratic opponents and then heading out to the latest Make America Great Again moment in Wisconsin. The occasion at hand: Trump signed what he called “landmark” legislation to fight the opioid crisis in America, which a year ago he declared a national public-health emergency.
“Together,” the president told grieving mothers and fathers, cabinet members, lawmakers, and representatives of local law enforcement, “we will end the scourge of drug addiction in America. We’re going to end it or at least make an extremely big dent in this terrible, terrible problem.”
Almost no one who’s studied the from drug overdoses in 2017 thinks it will do any such thing. The bill’s provisions to expand addiction treatment, speed up research on alternative drugs, and provide Medicaid funding to treatment centers with more than 16 inpatient beds will certainly help, as will , “the most money ever received in history,” Trump said. But many public-health experts, and some of Trump’s Democratic opponents in Congress, say something to end or “make an extremely big dent” in opioid addiction. Senator Elizabeth Warren by an administration that still does not have a confirmed director of its Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) after nearly two years in office.
