With the White House’s plan to deal with opioid problem, the authorities have countered the Trump administration’s justice and health policies, according to advocates and politicians.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration declared its launch for a commission that aims to study and deal with the crisis. According to statistics, about 91 people in the United States die every day due to opioid overdose. This report was brought out by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention or CDC.

Donald Trump said that opioid addiction or abuse has truly become a very crippling issue in all parts of the United States of America. He added that this crisis is less talked about compared to the extremeness and severity people are witnessing nowadays.

These “almost untalked about” problems such as addiction to prescription drugs like opioid and heroin has been in the forefront of the federal health agency concerns for years now. In line with this reality, the Congress has also taken the liberty to commit itself in giving response to the said crisis while adopting certain types of federal policies that reflect legislation states all throughout the political arena. Unfortunately, the centerpiece plan of Donald Trump to convene a commission that promotes and develops recommendations is perceived by many people in the country as somewhat redundant.

It was in November 2016 when the surgeon general published and presented a nonpartisan report that outlines solutions as well as recommendations.

According to Daniel Raymond, the policy director of a drug policy advocacy group called Harm Reduction Coalition, he is not aware of the fact that there are many parties who are now enthusiastic about the creation and introduction of commission report. This is because the commission report itself does not seem to presuppose that Harm Reduction Coalition does not actually know what needs to be realized.

As a matter of fact, Raymond said that existing justice and health policies of the White House contradict or negate the pre-existing policy recommendations. On account to this, the advocates said that progress is practically threatened by the White House specifically its efforts to revoke or annul the Act on Affordable Healthcare which is otherwise known as Obamacare. Progress is also threatened by the stance of the justice department toward drug policy.

Raymond also stressed out that he is not aware of how a person is capable of turning a circle into a square by just merely saying, “we care much about drug addiction like opioid crisis” then gets in the way to cut budgets, terminates access to healthcare and beefs up strategies of the law enforcement instead of providing support and services.

There’s one big question which was also raised by Raymond in consonance to the commission report and this questions is stressed thus: Will the commission report be disconnected from the other policies of Trump administration? Another relevant question that was being raised is: Is the commission report going to help align and put agencies in order especially in the making of appropriate response to the crisis in question?

The White House has budget proposals for 2016 and 2017 and the fund has been cut and distributed to several key agencies that aim to fight off and combat opioid crisis. These agencies include the National Institutes of Health for its ongoing researches on solutions for opioid crisis, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration or SAMSHA for its aim to award grants to help communities deal with the crisis and the CDC which is the agency that has the responsibility of tracking data on opioid use and addiction.

Jeff Sessions, an attorney general and the country’s chief law enforcement offices has also gotten himself in the way to advocate for drug policies that also echoes the war on drugs campaign albeit the fact that this campaign or strategy was discredited by science and was tagged as something which is counterproductive by the administration of former US president Barrack Obama.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a democrat from the state of New Hampshire said that a massive gulf or gap has been created between President Trump and the policies which have been proposed by the administration during the first two months of office of the president.

Another US senator by the name of Patty Murray, also a democrat from the state of Washington DC said that he is willing to take the proposed efforts of the president on opioid more seriously if Trump had not spent his last two months derailing the historic procedures on substance abuse treatment via the Affordable Care Act. He would also take the proposed efforts in a kore serious manner if the president didn’t cut the budget by 20 percent which is deemed to be very essential in the fight against the opioid epidemic in the United States.

While these concerns seemed to be very prevalent, US advocates said that they were at least somewhat encouraged that the White House administration pushed to signal opioid crisis as one of the major concerns. If it wasn’t then the administration may not have gotten in the way to contact trusted officials to create a commission report on opioid crisis in the United States of America.

On the lighter side, Chris Christie was appointed and he was warmly welcomed because this governor from New Jersey has long been in the frontlines and fighting off drug addiction crisis. His appointment was timely while the White House is currently teeming with people who don’t have any experience in public governance.

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The National Institute on Drug Abuse or NIDA has declared that over eighteen billion dollars is wasted annually due to the effects of poor health and productivity and drug addiction plays a crucial role in this scenario. What is even worse is that drug addiction is also the most common causes of social problems which include domestic violence, family breakdown, vehicular accidents, child abuse, loss of employment, education problem, etc.

Currently, the United States is doing ways to fight off drug addiction and it is obvious to note that the country has many hindrances to consider to winning the battle against drug addiction. Such hurdles or hindrances usually include access to appropriate care, socio-economic inequality, racial inequality and congested prisons with high levels of drug use. In the past twenty-five years, the rates of drug in the US remained stable despite the intensifying effort of the US authorities to eradicate drug trafficking and use. In the country, carrying prohibited drugs (for sale or personal use) is considered as a federal crime and punishment can be extremely severe.

Facts and Figures on Drug Abuse in the US

Each year, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health is conducted in the US to determine the existing trend of drug use. Aside from drugs, this survey also assesses tobacco and alcohol dependence of Americans older than twelve years. The authority that conducts this annual survey is known as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMSHA and more than 67,000 Americans are surveyed and assessed. The survey has the following facts and figures for the year 2010:

• 6 million Americans over 12 years old were previous or current drug users.
• 6 Americans over 18 years old are users of illicit drugs.
• 4 million Americans are users of Marijuana which is considered as the most commonly used prohibited drug.
• 5 million Americans are cocaine users.
• 2 million Americans are users of hallucinogen drugs with 700,000 of which are users of ecstasy.
• In 2010, 7 million people in the country made use of prescription drugs which weren’t used for medical purposes.
• A decrease in the number of methamphetamine use was reported in the past month. The reported number was 353,000.
• 5 percent of all drug users in the country are unemployed, 8.4 percent are full time employees or workers and 11.2 percent are part time workers. This simply shows that 65.5 percent of the country’s total drug users are employed and working at some capacity.
• 5 million people in the country are known to be driving cars and other types of vehicles even when they are under the influence of drugs.

SAMSHA said that about 8.9 million Americans are suffering from co-occurring mental health issue as well as substance abuse issue. Of this figure, 55 percent of which has been reported to not getting any proper treatment so as to cure the condition.

Legal Drugs or Prescription Drugs

Drugs can be legally used if they are prescribed by a licensed doctor and to be used for medical purposes. However, many Americans become addicted to prescription drugs simply because they are not used to treat certain illnesses. Thus, the Federal Government has announced that Prescription drug abuse has literally become one of the country’s menacing problems. According to statistics, about 20 percent of the country’s population is using prescription drugs for non-medical purposes.

Prescription opiates (vicodin and oxycodone) happens to be the most common type of abused prescription drugs in the country. In 2010, vicodin was prescribed in the US 130 million times. Basically, this kind of drug is used to treat extreme pain. On the other hand, the combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen is commonly used as analgesic or pain reliever but it can be very addicting as well.

Another type of addicting prescription drug is oxycodone. It is also used as a form of analgesic or pain reliever. This drug also lives in the country by the name of coalminers’ cocaine or hillbilly heroin because of its massive use in the country’s poor regions. It is also taken a substitute for heroin. Many young and first time users believe that oxycodone is also much safer than heroin. When taken without proper supervision, this drug can be very addictive and dangerous.

Treatment Problems and Incarceration

In the US, there is a problem with treatment gaps as far as treating drug addiction is concerned. This means that people who are struggling with addiction find it hard to get access to treatment services and facilities and this proves to be true when they don’t have private health insurance. With this in mind, sort-term or limited treatments are obvious. Relapse is also possible.

Due to the untreated problem on drug addiction, over two million people in the country are incarcerated with more than 25 percent of which is due to drug offenses. Based on surveys, people who were incarcerated due to drug offenses came from communities that struggle with the lack of services that aim to treat drug abuse or addiction. This has brought out the strategy which was known as the War on Drugs. This particular strategy was introduced on the United States in the 1970s to help in the reduction of drug abuse cases and other forms of drug-related crimes.

Prior to the introduction of this strategy, certain regions in the country have successfully reduced problems on drug trafficking. Unfortunately, this has also become the reason why the country’s incarceration rates of drug abusers as a way to deal with and overcome substance abuse issues. In short, this strategy has not been effective enough to successfully reduce drug addiction rates in the country. The US has actually seen the greatest increase in number of people who were arrested due to drug offenses. It has actually tripled in the last 25 years.

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