This Is Trump's Plan to Stop the Opioid Epidemic. It's...Underwhelming.

[Miles Archer]

This Is Trump's Plan to Stop the Opioid Epidemic. It's...Underwhelming.



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/christie-drug-commission-trump


While President Donald Trump promised to "spend the money" to end the scourge of opiate addiction on the campaign trail, he's been quiet on the issue since he began his tenure—even as health care has taken center stage.

But later this week, the president plans to announce a new drug commission to combat the opioid epidemic chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, according to the Washington Post's Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker. The team will be part of a new office, led by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that will have "sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises." Christie has been "working informally on the issue for several weeks with Kushner, despite reported tension between the two," reports the Post. (Christie was the federal prosecutor who helped put Kushner's father, the real estate mogul Charles Kushner, behind bars.)

According to sources familiar with the draft executive order calling for the creation of the commission, the primary goal of the President's Commission on Combating Opioid Abuse, Addiction, and Overdose would be to compile a report on the state of the opioid epidemic—along with recommendations for responding to it—by October. Members of the commission will include Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. The members would not be paid, but funding for the commission costs would be paid for by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The commission would be specifically tasked with identifying "federal funding mechanisms" for addiction prevention and treatment, assessing the availability of addiction treatment services, identifying best practices for addiction prevention, recommending regulatory changes in federal criminal law, reviewing barriers to response by the health care system, and evaluating existing federal programs to combat addiction and overdose.

[napi21]

1. Well, we all knew the Con would find a job for his buddy Chris. Poor guy might have starved to

death being unemployed and all.

[Warpy]

2. IOW, more of the same horse shit from clueless Puritans

The first thing they need to do is understand the difference between dependence and addiction. The "epidemic" is mostly dependence in people who were prescribed long acting opiods for acute pain and then found they were dependent on them. These people need a gentle detox and enough education that they turn down anything with "contin" in the name in the future. Most will stay drug free with little follow up.

Addicts are different and need intensive, long term therapy. The first stage needs to be inpatient and they have to follow up with group therapy when they go home. Even then, the "cure" rate is very low.

Ending the drug war would also help, removing the anxiety around getting that next dose and undercutting the black market, killing off the drug gangs. 50% of "hard core addicts" in a pilot program in the UK had tapered completely off the drugs in a pilot program there in the 80s, a better cure rate than any rehab program has ever achieved.