Obama Devotes End of Term To Fighting Opioid Crisis

As President Obama’s second term winds down, he is turning his attention to a serious crisis gripping America currently; abuse and overdose of opioid drugs, both in the form of prescription pain killers and heroin.

In recent years, opioid abuse has become a serious problem for Americans, with more people dying of overdose in 2014 than died in car accidents. This problem is often blamed on chronic pain patients, although studies do not actually bear this out. In fact, many addicts start by using someone else’s prescription, and then become addicted.

President Obama partnered with the musical artist Macklemore to create a documentary about the opioid crisis and highlight some of the ways that he is asking Congress to help Americans. Macklemore has been public about his own struggles with opioid use and recovery.

Macklemore spoke poignantly about the stigma that still surrounds addiction and recovery. He was surprised, he said, by how hard it was to be honest about what he was going through. He thanked his parents for their assistance in finding a rehab facility that helped him get and stay sober.

Both Macklemore and the President highlighted how the focus of addiction treatment is slowly shifting from the current perception of addiction as a moral shortcoming which must be conquered to a disease like any other which requires treatment. Law enforcement and other penal methods of treating addiction do virtually nothing to help users recover, and not all rehab treatments are equivalent.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch Spoke to High School Students in Lexington

A group of Kentucky high school students had the opportunity to hear Attorney General Loretta Lynch speak about the opioid crisis, and the Obama administration’s efforts to turn the tide. Kentucky communities have been particularly hard hit by heroin and other opioid drugs in recent years. Attorney General Lynch reiterated that, in many cases, addicts no longer get their first drugs from dealers, but from family medicine cabinets.

In many cases, Attorney General Lynch said, addicts start with a problem with prescription drugs, and then later move on to heroin because it’s less expensive and easier to get when compared to many prescription drugs. She also stated that marijuana is not the gateway drug it was often touted as being. She pointed out that regular marijuana use can have other health consequences, but that marijuana users are not inherently more likely to use hard drugs.

She did state that people who are more likely to experiment with risk overall are more likely to experience addiction in their lives, and that a tendency to try marijuana may be correlated.

What will the federal government do to help addicts?

President Obama has called for $1.1 billion from Congress in new aid to help combat the opioid crisis. According to the White House’s official statement, this money will be used to:

• Expand the substance abuse coverage currently offered from TRICARE. This will specifically benefit our military personnel, active, veterans, and reserve members. Coverage should include both in-patient treatment and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) with buprenorphine. In many situations, MAT is considered the most effective way of managing an opioid addiction.

• Improve treatment options for rural communities. Unlike other drug epidemics which have hit cities and urban areas the hardest, the opioid crisis has been particularly harsh in rural areas of the United States. Patients in these areas may have the fewest options for treatment; little to no access to advanced rehab programs, no doctors who are able to prescribe buprenorphine, and huge social stigma against seeking help in the first place. New funding would allow for telemedicine programs and distance learning to help doctors in rural areas gain the necessary tools to help their communities. Another big benefit can be helping kids develop positive relationships within their communities, by working with organizations like RealityChangers, helping kids see a life beyond their current circumstances.

• Work with the Chinese government regarding fentanyl and similar products that are imported to the United States. Because of how fentanyl is imported, it is difficult for the U.S. to specifically outlaw the chemical that manufacturers use to create illicit opioids. Working directly with the Chinese government may permit a solution to be found.

• Increase the number of MAT patients a doctor can prescribe for. Currently, doctors can only have 100 MAT patients on their prescription list. While this limit was created with good intentions, it has left huge swaths of patients untreated, and created very severe consequences for patients who make even the smallest errors. Doctors who have sought waivers to treat 275 patients at a time have been successful at those numbers, so this would increase that limit for all buprenorphine prescribers.

• Preventing overdose deaths with naloxone. Naloxone is an injectable which can reverse an opioid overdose and save lives, but many communities still struggle with knowing when and how to administer it. The FDA has announced an app contest to help combat these issues and get the injectable to those who need it urgently.