The president was expected to lay out a broad strategy for tackling the overdose epidemic, which is killing one Mainer a day.
MANCHESTER, N. H. – President Donald Trump was expected to lay out a broad strategy to fight America’s growing opioid overdose crisis during a speech before an audience of about 300 at Manchester Community College Monday.
Trump is scheduled to take the stage at about 2:40 p.m.. His plan to tackle the crisis, which claims on average one Maine life a day, includes increased law enforcement efforts, more evidence-based treatment, reducing the number of opioid prescriptions being issued for pain and stiffer penalties for drug traffickers – including the death penalty for some.
Trump is also expected to announced a renewed federal effort to provide funding to programs that help expand access to the life-saving overdose antidote naloxone, known largely by it’s brand name Narcan.
First Lady Melania Trump, along with top White House advisers on the crisis, were expected to join the president in New Hampshire for the address. White House officials said in a teleconference briefing with the press on Sunday night that they expect Trump to stick to the topic of the opioid crisis and not stray into reelection campaign mode, although New Hampshire, with its first-in-the-nation presidential primary, is viewed as a key stop for any candidate seeking election or reelection to the Oval Office.
In August, Trump angered many in New Hampshire when he referred to the state as a “drug-infested den” in a phone conversation with the president of Mexico, according to a transcript of the call published by the Washington Post.
Trump sought to blame Mexico for producing the heroin that is causing overdoses in New Hampshire, but public health data shows that most of the deaths are being caused by fentanyl and its derivatives, synthetic opioids produced primarily in China.
Opioid overdoses killed 437 people in New Hampshire in 2016, for a rate of 35.8 deaths per 100,000 people. That gives the Granite State the second highest rate of overdose deaths related to opioids in the nation.
Trump administration officials made note of the opioid overdose epidemic’s impact on Maine when then-Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway visited the state in May of 2017. The state saw a record 418 drug overdose deaths in 2017, an 11 percent increase over the previous year.
Opioids, including prescription and illicit drugs, were responsible for 354 of the deaths, and fentanyl supplanted heroin as the deadliest substance. Unlike heroin, which is manufactured from poppy plants, fentanyl can be made in a laboratory and is easier to smuggle because it’s sold in tiny doses.
This story will be updated.
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