August 10, 2017

Trump Is (Finally) Moving Towards Declaring Opioids a National Emergency

“You know, when I was growing up, they had the LSD.”

President Trump speaks at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on ThursdayEvan Vucci/AP

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On Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump said his administration was moving towards declaring the opioid epidemic a national emergency, the central recommendation put forward last week by the commission he created to tackle the problem.

Trump’s announcement came two days after Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price notably declined to say if the administration would trigger a national emergency, a formal designation that would unlock millions of federal disaster funds, and could be used to waive rules that restrict treatment access.

“We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency,” Trump said during a press briefing at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey:

“We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,” he said. “It is a serious problem, the likes of which we’ve never had. You know, when I was growing up, they had the LSD, and they had certain generations of drugs. There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years.”

Trump’s decision comes after the president attended a meeting at his New Jersey golf course on Tuesday with the first lady and health officials to discuss the crisis. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose,” Trump said at the time, “is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place.” He continued, “If they don’t start, they wont have a problem. If they do start, it’s awfully tough to get off. So if we can keep them from going on and maybe by talking to youth and telling them, ‘No good, really bad for you in every way.’ But if they don’t start, it will never be a problem.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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