Trump's drug commission wants 'national emergency' for opioids as seizures rise in Houston area

Keep going for a look at maps that explain how drugs, including opiates move around the globe. Keep going for a look at maps that explain how drugs, including opiates move around the globe. Image 1 of / 36 Caption Close Trump's drug commission wants 'national emergency' for opioids as seizures rise in Houston area 1 / 36 Back to Gallery

The request by the President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to declare the opiate problem a "national emergency" comes as Houston-area law enforcement agencies have started seizing increasing amounts of the drugs.

The commission asked President Donald Trump Monday to declare the high number of deaths and addiction from opiates an emergency, saying such a declaration would "awaken every American to this simple fact: if this scourge has not found you or your family yet, without bold action by everyone, it soon will."

Local law enforcement agencies have seized extraordinarily potent opiates like Fentanyl and Carfentanil in the Houston region, prompting agencies recently to announce they have decided to cease the use of roadside drug testing out of fears about the dangers of accidental exposure to the substances.

In Houston, lab technicians at the Houston Forensic Science Center tested just one Fentanyl case in 2015. In 2016, that grew to 13 cases. This year, they have seen nine cases so far, including one Carfentanil case.

In the past two months, agencies have seized more than 11 kilos of Fentanyl, enough for millions of doses.

Across the nation, deaths from heroin recently surpassed gun homicides, according to 2015 figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks," the report's authors wrote.

As the Washington Post noted Tuesday, a recent federal study found that prescription painkillers are now more widely used than tobacco.

The report did not include many of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' war-on-drug measures, including returning to the renewed use of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes, and ramping the use of civil asset forfeiture back up.

Grant Smith, of the Drug Policy Alliance, told the Washington Post:

"The interim report is mostly appropriately focused around dealing with the opioid crisis as the health issue that it is. It offers a sharp contrast to the overall approach that the Trump administration has been taking to escalate the war on drugs."

The commission offered a variety of options to help fight the epidemic, including requiring the prescribing of anti-overdose medication with high-risk opioid prescriptions and equipping all law enforcement in the United States with naloxone to save lives.

You can read the commission's other suggestions and the full report here.

St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com.