Despite recommendations by his own task force to declare a “national emergency” to help combat the opioid epidemic, the Trump administration’s approach to the problem appears instead to be a reliance on previously less-than-effective efforts to urge people to abstain from opioid use and impose longer, harsher prison terms for those who succumb.

The administration disregarded the “urgent recommendation” of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Tom Price, Health and Human Services secretary, said that it could be tackled without resorting to invoking emergency powers.

In its preliminary report issued last week, the five-member panel described the death toll from opioids as “September 11th every three weeks.” It also urged the president to immediately “declare a national emergency under either the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford Act.”