US says no to emergency over opioid crisis Breaking News Aug 09, 2017

The Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has put to rest speculations about declaring an emergency over the opioid crisis in the United States. On Aug. 8, 2017, Price said that President Donald Trump was not considering any such declaration in the near future. The announcement by the Trump administration has come a week after a White House commission had urged the president to declare a national emergency to combat the opioid epidemic.

“We believe that at this point, the resources that we need or the focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crises can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency,” said Price, who is a Republican and a renowned orthopedic physician. However, he emphasized that the government would treat the opioid problem as an emergency.

Price stated that he was working on strategies, briefed by the president, to tackle the opioid crisis. Currently, the government is working with various agencies to plan effective prevention, treatment and recovery programs. Earlier in the day, Trump called for more abstinence-based treatment to deal with the menace. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place. If they don’t start, they won’t have a problem,” Trump said.

The White House panel on opioid crisis, led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, had highlighted that overdoses kill as many people as the 9/11 terrorist attacks every three weeks. In addition to the emergency declaration, the commission had recommended increasing the number of Medicaid recipients with access to residential addiction treatment. It also demanded that law enforcement agencies be equipped with naloxone, the antidote used by first responders to revive people suffering from an opioid addiction.

According to public health experts, declaring an emergency would make the government treat the opioid epidemic as a top priority. Notably, governors of Arizona, Florida, Maryland and Virginia have already called for a state of emergency on the opioid epidemic.

Treatment for opioid addiction

While prevention programs have their long-term benefits, helping people with opioid addiction get right treatment is the need of the hour. They should be educated about the benefits of treatment so that they can report their symptoms and achieve faster recovery. Therefore, if a person is suffering from an opioid addiction, he/she should immediately seek professional assistance from a reputed rehab center.

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