You probably know how I feel about this:
President Donald Trump campaigned across the country promising to fix the opioid crisis, but public health advocates say his early moves are poised to make it far worse.
The newest development — a proposed 95 percent cut to the office leading the opioid fight — sparked concerns from within the agency and longtime addiction advocates.
“It’s devastating,” said Kevin Sabet, who worked in the decades-old Office of National Drug Control Policy, advising the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations. “It’s the biggest cut I’ve ever seen or had to deal with.”
Supposedly, Trump is trying to stand something up that will be led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie who is one of the better Republicans in the nation on this issue. Maybe that effort will yield something worthwhile, but let’s keep things in perspective:
Since taking office, the Trump administration has fought to pass an Obamacare repeal bill that would result in millions more without coverage; fired a surgeon general who led an unprecedented study of the opioid crisis; proposed billions of dollars of cuts to public health funding; and signaled a return to the tough-on-drugs approach to fighting addiction.
Obviously, having a history of substance abuse is a pre-existing condition, and depending on a final health care bill’s details, treating mental illness at parity with other illnesses could become optional, making it harder to get treatment or pay for counseling. On the whole, the only thing Trump has attempted so far that might move things in a positive direction is a pointless effort to prevent Mexican heroin from getting into the country by building a giant wall on the border. If that would work, it might be worth the expense and effort, but it wouldn’t work.
In any case, he isn’t getting his wall.
People are pretty desperate that something be done to combat the overdose deaths that are now claiming over 47,000 American lives per year. A wall might sound better than nothing. But nothing is better than what Trump is doing with his other proposals.
He’s a fraud. He never cared about the people he promised to help or anyone other than himself. There is, however, growing awareness on a bipartisan basis that steps must be taken to stop this scourge. It’s going to be up to Congress to lead, though, because the administration, on their own, is going to make a terrible problem immeasurably worse.
