Trump to declare opioid crisis a 'national emergency'

They had no problem with coke when it was in the pockets of most on Wall St and Hollywood. Once the inner cities became infested with crack their response was a stiffer sentence for crack than coke. You can figure out who that helped and who it hurt. Heroin in the inner cities has just been business as usual also, until middle class white kids started dying from it. Part of the current issue is heroin laced with fentanyl - usually without the user's knowledge. Fentanyl is 80 times more potent than morphine. The dermal patches are measured in micrograms (one millionth vice one thousandth) instead of let's say a 20 milligram opiate pill. One might be prescribed a fentanyl patch containing 25, 50, 75, or 100 micrograms of the drug and it is left applied for 3 days. Earlier this week a drug bust yielded 20 lbs of powdered fentanyl in NYC, and it was estimated to be enough to kill 1/2 the population of NYC. People are dying left and right from both the stronger heroin that the Taliban vowed to flood our streets with and fentanyl-laced heroin. Suburban kids are often being exposed to it in the form of opiate pills and when they can no longer find the pills they resort to the plentiful and cheap heroin that is everywhere. The DEA has been tightening restrictions on MD's for many years and monitoring the number of Rx's they write. Not all people get hooked because of "party" behavior. It is often a by-product of an injury, surgery, cancer treatment or other legitimate reason. What matters though, is that people of all ages are becoming dependent and it is definitely a serious problem. Eventually the DEA and Congress will remove any judgement by Drs. from the process. They will publish standards that say this condition equals quantity x of pill y for days z. Everything after that will be referred to very expensive pain management clinics and have an adverse effect on both the level of care and healthcare costs. Example: before my Mom passed a couple of years ago I took her to a pain management clinic. She needed some sort of injection (non-narcotic) to help with severe pain associated with arthritis. When she got the bill the shot was listed as a procedure vice an injection, and it was billed at $750. Just one example of a potential issue with coming attractions on this opiate war.

Well he is right about that.

He is right, but will he make it better or worse