As the issue of prescription drug addiction heats up on the campaign trail and in the political arena, President Obama highlighted the importance of prescription drug safety in his weekly address Saturday.
Sept. 26 is National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, a day in which people can safely dispose of expired and unwanted prescription medication at local collection sites.
“More Americans now die every year from drug overdoses than they do in car crashes. And most of those deaths aren’t due to drugs like cocaine or heroin — but rather prescription drugs,” said Obama. “Most young people who begin misusing prescription drugs don’t buy them in some dark alley — they get them from the medicine cabinet.”
In 2013, more than 16,000 Americans died from prescription pain medication, and many prescription drug abusers use it as a gateway drug to heroin. As a result of this, between 2013 and 2014 the U.S. saw a 33 percent increase in the number of heroin users nationwide.
To combat such drug abuse, the Obama Administration implemented the Prescription Drug abuse prevention plan, partnering with communities to prevent overdoses and equipping first responders to save more lives in cases of drug overdoses.
Obama isn’t the only politician promoting drug monitoring in the public sphere. Republican presidential candidates Carly Fiorina and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have both promoted a strict anti-drug stance on the campaign trail, with Fiorina having lost her step-daughter to drug and alcohol addiction. Jeb Bush’s wife, Columba, has made drug addiction prevention her main cause, speaking publicly against drug abuse and attempting to reduce the stigma surrounding treatment.
Similarly on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has proposed a $10 billion plan for treating drug addiction, inspired by the number of families struggling with drug addiction she has seen on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.
“All of this takes a terrible toll on too many families, in too many communities, all across the country — big and small, urban and rural,” Obama said in his address. “It strains law enforcement and treatment programs. It costs all of us — in so many different ways.”
The president said he would focus more on this issue in the week to come because “it’s a challenge we can solve if we work together.”
