Trump declares opioid crisis a 'national emergency' and promises 'effort and money' to solve it before adding: 'When I was growing up they had the LSD'

• e-mail

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will officially declare the opioid crisis a 'national emergency' and pledged to ramp up government efforts to combat the epidemic.

'The opioid crisis is an emergency. And I am saying officially right now: It is an emergency, it's a national emergency.

'We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,' Trump told reporters during a brief question-and-answer session ahead of a security briefing Thursday at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

He said he'd be drawing up documents to formalize the declaration soon.

 'We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,' Trump told reporters

 'The opioid crisis is an emergency. And I am saying officially right now: It is an emergency, it's a national emergency,' he said after a lunch with Mike Pence 

A drug commission convened by Trump and led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently called on Trump to declare a national emergency to help deal with the growing crisis. 

An initial report from the commission noted that the approximately 142 deaths each day from drug overdoses mean the death toll is 'equal to September 11th every three weeks.'

Trump received a briefing on the report earlier this week during his 17-day working vacation in New Jersey.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price seemed to suggest after that briefing that the president was leaning against the recommendation, arguing that the administration could deploy the necessary resources and attention to deal with the crisis without declaring a national emergency.

Still, Price stressed that 'all things' were 'on the table for the president.'

Trump said Thursday that the nation's addiction to opioids is 'a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had.'

He added: 'When I was growing up they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs.'

HOW AMERICA GOT HOOKED ON OPIOID DRUGS

Prescription opioids and illicit drugs have become incredibly pervasive throughout the US, and things are only getting worse.  

In the early 2000s, the FDA and CDC started to notice a steady increase in cases of opioid addiction and overdose. In 2013, they issued guidelines to curb addiction. 

However, that same year - now regarded as the year the epidemic took hold - a CDC report revealed an unprecedented surge in rates of opioid addiction.

Overdose deaths are now the leading cause of death among young Americans - killing more in a year than were ever killed annually by HIV, gun violence or car crashes.

Preliminary CDC data published by the New York Times shows US drug overdose deaths surged 19 percent to at least 59,000 in 2016.

That is up from 52,404 in 2015, and double the death rate a decade ago.

It means that for the first time drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 years old.

The data lays bare the bleak state of America's opioid addiction crisis fueled by deadly manufactured drugs like fentanyl.  

CDC data show drug overdose deaths surged 19 percent to at least 59,000 in 2016

WHAT IS DRIVING THE ADDICTION EPIDEMIC?

Lawmakers have largely blamed pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of 'deceptive marketing', underplaying the addictiveness of drugs, and blocking generic competition from providing low-cost alternatives. 

Since 1999, sales of prescription opioids in the United States have quadrupled. 

US lawmakers have tried to take steps to curb abuse of prescription drugs; in recent years the FDA has banned highly-addictive opioids in favor of drugs that proved in trials to be less addictive and harder to crush for snorting.  

However, cases of addiction and overdose have continued to rise, not fall. 

And a recent study found that the posted drug by Opana ER, which was branded as 'non-addictive', was as easy to crush and abuse as banned versions.

WHAT IS BEHIND THE RISING OVERDOSE-DEATH RATE? 

Experts warn a key factor of the surge in deaths is fentanyl, which can be 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more so than morphine.

Public health advocates believe that as patients got hooked on drugs they couldn't afford, they started seeking cheaper alternatives on the street.  

Americans are too drugged up to work: Manufacturing companies are turning to ROBOTS as the opioid epidemic consumes employees in the Midwest

American adults are too drugged up to get the best jobs, a number of reports have concluded.

A surge in drug abuse in men and women without a college diploma has caused American companies to struggle to find skilled workers.

In the past few years there has been an uptick in opioid addiction, with the most common being heroin and the powerful contaminant fetanyl.

Fentanyl, the drug responsible for the death of musician Prince last year, is a man-made opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine. 

These reports show a cyclical nature to the drug epidemic in certain parts of America.

Due to the loss of manufacturing jobs in America, people have turned to drugs as a coping mechanism. The resulting drug abuse leads to even more joblessness, which causes people to feel hopeless.

Jed Kolko, an economist at the job search website Indeed, told Axios there are more people of a 'prime age' each year who cite illness or disability as the reason they are unemployed.

He looked at a recent US population survey and found that between 5.6 and 5.7 percent of Americans over the age of 18 didn't work last year because of illness or disability.

Drug addiction is considered to be illness or disability, but it s not clear how much of that percentage is caused by it.

Jed Kolko, an economist at the job search website Indeed, told Axios there are more people of a 'prime age' each year who cite illness or disability as the reason they are unemployed 

And the epidemic is hitting American companies as hard as the population, because they are having such a tough time finding skilled workers. 

Reports suggest that many owners and managers at manufacturing jobs are turning towards automation because they do not know how to deal with addicted workers.

That means people are losing jobs in favor of robots and computers. 

One West Virginia company reported that half of its applicants for a manufacturing job fail or refuse to take a mandatory pre-employment drug test. 

In March a survey by the National Safety Council found that over 70 percent of employers in the United States feel the direct impact of prescription drug misuse in the workplace. 

Even when taken as prescribed, the drugs can impair workers, NSC President and CEO Deborah Hershman said.  

DRUG OVERDOSES ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN AMERICAN ADULTS UNDER 50 

Figures released in June by the New York Times revealed drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death in American adults under 50. 

The data, published in a special report by the Times' Josh Katz, lays bare the bleak state of America's opioid addiction crisis fueled by deadly manufactured drugs like fentanyl. 

The figures are based on preliminary data, which will form part of an official report by the CDC later this year.

Experts warn a key factor of the surge in deaths is fentanyl, which can be 50 times more powerful than heroin. 

The Times said its data showed between 59,000 and 65,000 people could have died from overdoses in 2016, up from 52,404 in 2015, and double the death rate a decade ago.

In the past few years there has been an uptick in opioid addiction, with the most common being heroin and the powerful contaminant fetanyl. 

Fentanyl, the drug responsible for the death of musician Prince last year, is a man-made opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine. 

Danger: Opioid drugs contribute to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths

 

Drug poisonings now eclipse car crashes as the leading cause of preventable deaths among adults.  

Figures released in June by the New York Times revealed drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death in American adults under 50.

The data, published in a special report by the Times' Josh Katz, lays bare the bleak state of America's opioid addiction crisis fueled by deadly manufactured drugs like fentanyl. 

The figures are based on preliminary data, which will form part of an official report by the CDC later this year.

Experts warn a key factor of the surge in deaths is fentanyl, which can be 50 times more powerful than heroin. 

The Times said its data showed between 59,000 and 65,000 people could have died from overdoses in 2016, up from 52,404 in 2015, and double the death rate a decade ago.

Now, politicians are taking notice as well. 

At the beginning of July, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen related opioid use to the declining labor participation rate while speaking at a congressional testimony. 

And in June, Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine said 40 percent of applications in the state were either failing or refusing drug tests. 

'This prevents people from operating machinery, driving a truck or getting a job managing a McDonald's,' he said at a Congressional hearing.  

In June, Georgia authorities warned about new forms of fentanyl which are resistant to Narcan, the only known cure for a drug overdose.

Acrylfentanyl and tetrahydrofueron are two new strains of the drug that overwhelm the brain with such intensity that Narcan (the brand name for naloxone) has little to no effect.

Narcan works by blocking the brain receptors which fentanyl unlocks.

Drug users experience their high from opioids because the substance seeks out receptors in the brain, attaches to them, and 'unlocks' them - like a key. 

Over the next few minutes and hours the drug repeatedly locks and unlocks those receptors, triggering a rush of joy, calm and pain relief. 

However, too much of a drug can overload those receptors and start to block the blood flow to the brain. 

This causes shortness of breath and a slow heart rate.

Narcan can reverse this dangerous effects in a matter of seconds if it is administered early enough. 

Like fentanyl, the substance attaches to brain receptors. But unlike fentanyl, it does not unlock it. Rather, it blocks and protects it, warding off the opioids. 

However, authorities are seeing that people who overdose on synthetic forms of fentanyl, such as the two detected in Georgia in June, are so powerful that Narcan cannot stop the drug from continuing to pummel the brain's receptors.