In 2016, drug overdoses claimed 64,000 lives. Something must be done.
However, our legislators have displayed a lack of urgency in remedying this epidemic. Despite small successes within states, little progress has been made on the federal level. President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency in October 2017, which he has failed to act on. The surgeon general issued an advisory encouraging people to carry the overdose drug Naloxone but availability of this drug is still limited.
These actions raise public support but fail to provide community funding or services. To suppress the effects of opioid addiction, the United States must increase monetary resources in affected communities.
Local legislators have begun to tackle the issue by increasing spending. By doing so, communities can organize greater support systems for addicts. Services such as Naloxone supplies and training, clinics with nonaddictive substitutes, safe injection sites, drug disposal,and other resources are in short supply and only in select communities.
Areas like the wealthy suburbs of Boston receive adequate funding for the scale of their crisis. However, some addicts have no access to these services while others must pay or place themselves in legal jeopardy to utilize them. Residents of rural, poor, or minority communities experience a severe lack of funding.
On April 18, 2018, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, proposed the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency Act to provide funding to combat the opioid epidemic. The CARE Act proposes $100 billion in federal funds over the next 10 years which would be dispersed to state and county governments to provide resources otherwise unavailable due to price discrimination.
The United States currently allocates $4.6 billion a year to opioids, despite their cost of $500 billion a year not in treatment but in consequences. Massachusetts has acknowledged this social cost and drastically increased their funding in 2017, thanks to support from the federal government, and overdose deaths decreased by 8 percent.
This success inspired the CARE Act by displaying the effectiveness of local distribution. The CARE Act will make this level of success possible for all communities across the country, not just in Massachusetts.
Tyler Greenwood
Easthampton