President Trump called for Americans to rally against opioid abuse in his State of the Union address Tuesday as Republicans in Congress said they’ll schedule hearings to figure out what help Washington can provide states slammed by the epidemic.
Mr. Trump told lawmakers to set politics aside, bolster treatment and get “much tougher” on drug dealers this year, looking to make good on promises he made during the 2016 campaign and again during his first year in office.
“I guess all things being equal, he has to get a pretty high mark — a ’B,’” said Kyle Pucek, a 41-year-old who beat his own heroin addiction in 2013 and is now part of “Hope over Heroin,” a program in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Mr. Pucek was a guest of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan for Tuesday’s speech, joining a number of others from the front lines of the epidemic who were invited to watch — and to serve as living testimony to the lows and highs of the fight.
“The struggle will be long and difficult — but in the end, as Americans always do, we will succeed, we will prevail,” Mr. Trump said.
The White House invited Ryan Holets, a police officer from New Mexico who adopted a baby from parents suffering from addiction, while Sen. Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire Democrat, brought McKenzie Harrington-Bacote, a school administrator from her state who warns students about the perils of addiction.
Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, invited Huntington Fire Chief Jan Rader, who said her city’s first responders deal with up to five overdoses a day and see 30 to 40 deaths per year as a result of the problem.
On one day in late 2016, they responded to 26 overdoses over a five-hour period.
“We need a lot of money. This is not just a West Virginia problem, it’s a national problem,” she said.
Congress threw $1 billion at the opioid crisis at the tail-end of the Obama era, yet it’s struggled to take bold action or make a big investment in the fight since then, as it stumbles from one funding deadline to another without cementing its fiscal priorities.
Mr. Trump declared opioids addiction to be a “public health emergency” in October. The declaration drew attention to the problem and rallied agencies to crack down on drug traffickers, warn consumers about opioid ingredients in cough medicine, and cut red tape that was limiting treatment beds under the Medicaid insurance program.
Yet Mr. Trump left it to Congress to fund new policies through the Public Health Emergency Fund, which is severely depleted.
The White House decided not to invoke the Stafford Act to designate certain areas as emergency zones, akin to hurricane relief efforts that tap FEMA dollars, saying it wasn’t the right approach to a long-term problem like drug addiction. Yet not everyone agreed.
“I think it needs to be a bigger declaration,” Chief Rader said. “West Virginia leads the country in overdose deaths, so we need a bigger chunk of money for what we’re dealing with.”
Mr. Pucek, meanwhile, said the problem extends beyond government. He’d like to see pharmaceutical companies fund treatment for people who became addicted to their products.
His own battle with addiction started with a canister of 500 Vicodin pills in 2001. His doctor prescribed them after he broke his ankle during a softball game.
His “addictive personality” and ability to “juggle doctors” got him hooked and, once he reached a dead end with prescriptions, he turned to heroin.
He landed in rehab in 2013 after his family intervened. Since then he’s been clean and sober, allowing him to pursue a new career as an electrician, focus on his sports-card collection and help others steer clear of the struggle he had to overcome.
“When you’re younger,” he said, “you don’t think anything’s got that strong of a hold on you.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.