President Trump’s interest in cutting funding for an anti-drug abuse office is drawing bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers say it’s necessary to fight an ongoing heroin epidemic.
“We know that [drug-free communities] coalitions work effectively to reduce substance abuse in youths in over 600 communities across the nation, and has provided support to 4.4 million middle school and 6.3 million high school students since inception,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., wrote in a Wednesday letter to the White House.
“Amidst the most severe opioid epidemic in decades, it is reckless and senseless to eliminate an effective, evidence-based, community-oriented drug prevention program,” the lawmakers wrote.
Portman and Levin were spurred by reported draft budget documents that forecast cutting the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s budget from $388 million in 2017 down to $24 million in 2018. The opioid epidemic dominated the agenda for lawmakers throughout the Midwest last year as the number of overdoses increased, a crisis that Trump ascribed in part to illegal immigration and drug cartels taking advantage of a porous border.
Trump’s team countered that the crisis shows that the money is being spent poorly. “How can we spend this money better?” Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., who was tapped by Trump to lead a drug abuse commission, said on ABC. “Because we’re losing this fight.”
Christie cited a Government Accountability Office audit that found that the current drug office is “not effective” and predicted that the final Trump budget would tackle drug abuse in different ways. “I believe there will be funding, and that funding will take different forms as well,” he said.
