Story highlights "We need to declare a war on drugs," Manchin told CNN's Jake Tapper.

"It's just been unbelievable," Manchin said.

Washington (CNN) Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin called for a new "war on drugs" Tuesday to combat the opioid crisis striking his state of West Virginia, eagerly adopting the language of the now much-criticized Nixon-era push to curb illicit substance use.

"We need to declare a war on drugs," Manchin told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" when asked what President-elect Donald Trump should do to combat the situation.

"We've got some places that are really having some success rates, Jake, and most of them are run by reformed addicts," Manchin said.

As an example, the senator said children who began using recreational marijuana eventually could progress to their parents' prescriptions and then later routinely take heroin. "It's just been unbelievable," Manchin said, adding that opioid pills are prescribed "like M&M's."

A report by West Virginia's Charleston Gazette-Mail this weekend detailed how drug firms have sent hundreds of millions of painkiller drugs into the state as overdoses spiked.

Read More