Best way to prevent drug addiction is to prevent people from abusing drugs: Donald Trump

Washington DC, October 27: A public health emergency has been declared by the US President Donald Trump after calling the America's painkiller-addiction crisis a national shame. Since Trump took office more than $1 Billion in funding has been allocated on the drug addiction and opioid crisis.

 

According to the senior White House officials, a Presidential memorandum to the acting Health Secretary has been signed by the Trump for declaring a nationwide public health emergency and also asking to take measures to all the federal agencies so the number of deaths related to opioid deaths should be reduced.

Trump said 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. The plan has been announced to target the abuse of opioids which is leading to the deaths of hundreds of people every day.

In 2016, more than two million Americans had an addiction to prescription or illicit opioids. Since 2000, over 3,00,000 Americans have died from overdoses involving opioids. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of injury death in the United States, outnumbering both traffic crashes and gun-related deaths. In 2015, there were 52,404 drug overdose deaths — 33,091 of those deaths, almost two-thirds, involved the use of opioids.

Drug overdose deaths in 2016 expected to exceed 64,000.This represents a rate of 175 deaths a day. In 2016, more than 11.5 million Americans ages 12 and older reported misuse of prescription opioids in the past year, and nearly 950,000 Americans reported heroin use in the past year.