A senior White House official closely involved in the Trump administration’s effort to reverse the growing opioid epidemic said Tuesday the U.S. is presently “on the losing side” of the crisis.
“The problem is very complicated and currently, we are on the losing side of this war,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters during a press conference with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
Conway and Price met with President Trump and his wife, Melania, earlier Tuesday to discuss their recommendations for combatting addiction, regulating prescriptions, and eliminating the trafficking of fentanyl into the United States. Both administration officials have spent months visiting various parts of the country that have been rocked by record drug overdose deaths and opioid abuse.
“The secretary and I have traveled to a number of different states and we have heard the harrowing and very sad stories,” Conway said. “No state has been spared and no demographic has gone untouched.”
She continued, “This is not a problem of young or old, of black of white, of rural or suburban … we didn’t get here overnight and we can’t solve the crisis overnight either.”
The sudden focus on the opioid epidemic comes just days after Trump was criticized for describing New Hampshire as a “drug-infested den” during a January phone call with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, the transcript of which was published by the Washington Post last Thursday.
Despite voicing his concern Tuesday, Trump declined to accept a recommendation by the administration’s opioid commission to declare a national emergency for the crisis.
“We believe at this point that the resources that we need or focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crisis can be addressed without the declaration of emergency,” Price said.
