The declaration would help direct more financial resources and attention to the drug problem in communities across the country.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump said Thursday that he was drafting paperwork to officially declare the country\u2019s worsening epidemic of opioid overdoses a national emergency, accepting the urgent recommendation from a national commission that he appointed.
\u201cThe opioid crisis is an emergency, and I\u2019 m saying officially right now it is an emergency, \u201d Mr. Trump told reporters before a security briefing at his golf club in Bedminster, N. J. \u201cIt\u2019s a national emergency.\u201d
The president\u2019s commission, which is led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mr. Trump\u2019s one-time presidential rival, said last month that such a declaration was its \u201cfirst and most urgent recommendation, \u201d concluding that it would help direct more resources and attention on the crisis plaguing communities across the country.
But just two days ago, Mr. Trump\u2019s top health care official had played down the likelihood of an emergency declaration. Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services, told reporters that the crisis \u201ccan be addressed without the declaration of an emergency, although all things are on the table for the president.\u201d
In the last 48 hours, Mr. Trump has come under criticism from Democrats, who accused him of failing to adequately respond to the growing number of overdoses. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said the president had \u201cdone nothing\u201d for the people affected by the drug crisis.
In his statement to reporters, Mr. Trump made it clear that he intended to issue a formal declaration that the opioid crisis was a national emergency, much the way the federal government officially recognizes the need for a national response to natural disasters.
\u201cWe\u2019 re going to draw it up and we\u2019 re going to make it a national emergency, \u201d he said. \u201cIt is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had. You know when I was growing up they had the L. S. D. and they had certain generations of drugs. There\u2019s never been anything like what\u2019s happened to this country over the last four or five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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