Obama unveils new federal initiative to combat America’s heroin crisis

Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington
Wednesday 21 October 2015 23.39 BST

Barack Obama has unveiled a new federal initiative to combat the opioid crisis that has ravaged communities across the United States, causing more annual deaths in some states than car accidents.

The president traveled on Wednesday to West Virginia, an epicenter of the nation’s opioid and heroin epidemic, to detail his plan to try and reverse some of the harrowing statistics that have recently created a sense of urgency around substance abuse. In 2013 alone, more than 37,000 Americans died of a drug overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection, and prescription painkillers accounted for 16,000 of those deaths.

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Among the Obama administration’s proposals were to improve training among prescribers for opiate painkillers and to expanding access to medication-assisted treatment. The president also emphasized the need for criminal justice reform, another key platform of Obama’s second-term agenda, namely with respect to pushing to treat nonviolent drug offenders rather than imprison them.

“We should approach substance abuse as an opportunity to intervene, not incarcerate,” Obama said.

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