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.”

But according to a report in the Washington Post, Trump told reporters attending what was billed as a “major briefing” on the crisis at his Bedminster golf course that the “best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place.”

“If they don’t start, they won’t have a problem. If they do start, it’s awfully tough to get off,” he told reporters at the private course’s clubhouse. “So if we can keep them from going on — and maybe by talking to youth and telling them: ‘No good, really bad for you in every way.’ But if they don’t start, it will never be a problem.”

He focused more on drug dealers and the implied failure of the Obama administration to halt the flow of drugs into the country, and, according to a report in Politico, his determination to fight the crisis with “strong law enforcement.” A Reuters report pointed out that he offered “no new steps” to “win the fight” against the epidemic.

However, according to a Huffington Post report, Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, has come down firmly on the side of “aggressive action from police and prosecutors” as a way to control the epidemic. Prevention and treatment come in lower on the list, particularly in the Trump budget, which would cut the funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the agency leading the response to the opioid epidemic, by 95 percent.

Instant Insights /

Trump stops short of calling for national opioid emergency

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You