President Donald Trump’s border security policies contributed to a lowering of deaths from opioid overdoses in 2018 relative to 2017, said Dr. Nicole Saphier, author of Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis, linking the reduction in overdose deaths to a broader increase in life expectancy across the same timeframe. She joined Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss these developments with host Alex Marlow.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest report on life expectancy indicated an increase of 0.1 year between 2017 and 2018.

“Drug deaths dropped almost 5 percent in 2018 after rising for 28 consecutive years in the United States,” noted Marlow.

Saphier replied, “It is great news to see that. We usually think of cardiovascular disease and cancer as our leading causes of death. However, drug doses have also crept up. We have more people dying from overdose than ever before, and for the first time, in a little bit, it’s gone down. That is largely due to our efforts regarding the opioid crisis, which we have been dealing with for about two decades. But we now have fewer people being improperly prescribed opioids, fewer people taking opioids, and the Trump administration is working very hard to keep illegal opioids off of our streets with strict border control. All of those together have led to this decrease, which is wonderful news.”

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The CDC reported, “The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in 2018 (20.7 per 100,000) was 4.6% lower than in 2017 (21.7). Total overdose deaths fell by 4.1 percent in 2018 compared to 2017.

Marlow asked if improving economic circumstances and optimism across America contribute to reduction in overdose deaths.

“Every poll shows that Americans are doing better economically, financially, and they just have an overall improved feeling about themselves,” stated Saphier. “This president should be commended, because he is the one who declared it an emergency. He is the one who appropriated funding for the opioid crisis.

Previous administrations made “minimal [efforts], if anything, to help it,” stated Saphier.

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