© Stephen Crowley / The New York Times
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions during a listening session on the problems of drug addiction and overdose at the White House in Washington, DC, March 29, 2017.
Like his predecessor, President Trump has promised to take bold action to address the nation's opioid crisis and overdose epidemic, but critics say his efforts to undo President Obama's signature health care law could prevent large numbers of people with opioid use disorders from receiving treatment.
Others fear that instead of expanding community access to opioid disorder treatments, the Trump administration will push poor and marginalized people into "treatment" within the brutal confines of the prison system.
With his "law and order" approach to governing, Trump is poised to reverse federal momentum on opioids, shifting the focus from public health back to law enforcement and incarceration. What could that look like, besides more drug arrests? For starters, the man rumored to be Trump's pick for drug czar, Rep. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, has called for placing parents facing minor drug charges in a "hospital-slash-prison."
The government
reports that 435,000 people in the United States used heroin in 2014 and 1.9 million had opioid use disorders stemming from prescription painkillers, but
researchers say 80 percent did not receive treatment. When treatment for opioid dependence is not available, some people turn to street drugs like heroin and fentanyl, causing rates of deadly overdoses to
skyrocket. Opioid-related overdoses killed 33,000 people in 2015 alone.
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