According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention more than 140 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Today we call that an epidemic. To combat that Trump has been talking about how it is a national crisis and health emergency, it is actually what helped him win in New Hampshire, promising to change policy. Up until now not much has happened until Trump declared a public health emergency to deal with the opioid epidemic. While simultaneously the Trump administration launched an ad campaign trying to bring awareness to the detriment of drinking and doing drugs. During his speech it rang similarly to another politician who suggested to, “Just say No” as Trump echos this with “don’t drink don’t drink”, something his alcoholic brother would tell him.
If the Just Say No campaign did not work why should the American public believe that declaring a public health emergency will. Because it is not good enough. For an epidemic this large, wiping out almost a generation of people this has become a national emergency. It appears Trump wanted to create a show, some sort of temporary solution that creates a bandaid for addiction treatment. The funds allocated for Public Health Emergencies are almost gone and there are no new policies being put into place, so where is the real solution? This was a declarative act to subdue the masses into appeasement while not actually allocating funds to programs that will find solutions. A possibility would be to make Naloxone, an anti-overdose drug, more available and allow insurance to cover more treatment costs so that people have an opportunity to go.
Too many people are dying, too many people are not receiving the help they need. An Ad campaign is not America’s solution to a deadly disease. This is a citizen’s saddened call to action to change the stigma and start offering solutions, to not shrug it off and use it to make you appear to be changing policies. SAD.
