Trump: Use All Appropriate Authority in ‘Opioid Emergency’

Building upon the recommendations in the interim report from the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, President Donald Trump has instructed his Administration to use all appropriate authority to respond to the crisis caused by the opioid epidemic according to a White House statement.

During a short press availability earlier Thursday, the president declared the opioid crisis in America “an emergency.”

“The opioid crisis is an emergency,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.”

Opioids are a class of narcotic derived from the seed pod of the opium plant. From the morphine, codeine, and thebaine extracted from the the plant, drugs including heroin, hydrocodone, and fentanyl are refined.

Opioid addiction killed more than 33,000 people in America in 2015 – close to the number of auto crash deaths and surpassing that of gun deaths.

The heroine was the illegal opioid of choice for decades. Almost all Heroine comes across the southern U.S. border supplied by the Mexican drug cartels.

Now, the cartels have realized that much more potent and fentanyl and co-fentanyl can be more easily transported to mixed with heroin or cut and sold for a greater profit with less risk.