The White House, on Monday, announced a new strategy to address the nation's growing heroin epidemic, saying it plans to focus efforts on treating addicts rather than punishing them.
The program will pair public health workers with law enforcement officials across the 15 eastern states hardest hit by heroin, and will be initially funded for $2.5 million by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, reported Reuters.
Fifteen public health policy coordinators will help track overdoses, issue warnings about potentially dangerous batches of heroin and set the distribution of the overdose-fighting drug naloxone, according to The Hill. They will work alongside 15 drug intelligence officers who will collect data on trends in heroin trafficking to aid local law enforcement looking to disrupt the heroin supply. The program will also train police officers and first responders on how to use medication that can reverse the effects of a heroin overdose.
"The new Heroin Response Strategy demonstrates a strong commitment to address the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic as both a public health and a public safety issue," said Michael Botticelli, director of National Drug Control Policy, in a statement Monday, reported USA Today.
In the past decade, heroin use in the U.S. has more than doubled among people aged 18-25, and heroin overdose deaths have nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The surge is partially due to lower costs as well as an increase in the rate that opiate painkillers are prescribed, sold and abused, according to NBC News.
The new program will target designated counties in the following states: Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose home state has been significantly affected by the epidemic, was quick to praise the effort, saying it is a "positive development for Kentucky's efforts to fight the use of heroin that is hitting the commonwealth particularly hard." He has joined Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in calling for a surgeon general's report on the problem.
"I have no doubt that this new funding will enhance law enforcement's ability to fight heroin in some of the areas, such as Kentucky, that have seen communities and families ravaged because of this drug," said McConnell, reported The Hill. "In this era of limited federal resources, we must use these interagency partnerships to maximize our return from the federal dollars we spend to combat this epidemic."
