Trump’s focus on punishing drug dealers can hurt drug users who are trying to stop

President Trump has long led against drug traders. He said she was the death penalty “For their horrible acts.” On the first day of his second term, he signed one executive order Cartels mention “terrorist organizations.”

But many experts in the field of public health and addiction fear that his budget proposals and other actions effectively punish people who use drugs and struggle with addiction.

The Trump government has sworn to reduce the death of overdose, to emphasize one of the deadly public health crises in the country law enforcementBorder patrouilles and rates against China and Mexico to keep fentanyl and other dangerous drugs out. But it is also looking for enormous cutbacks on programs that reduce the demand for drugs.

The budget that it has submitted to the congress this month wants to eliminate more than a billion dollars National and regional Treatment and prevention services. The primary federal agency that tackles drug use, the Drug abuse and mental health care So far, administration has lost about half of its employees of dismissals under the Trump administration and is planned to collapse In the new administration for a healthy America, whose view will reach far beyond the mental illness and drug use.

And if the reductions to Medicaid are discussed by Republicans in the congress, millions of Americans will not be able to continue, much less starting treatment.

The White House did not respond to requests for comments. The budget itself says that the termination of drug trafficking “starts with safe boundaries and a dedication to law and order” and that it cuts addiction services that are considered duplicative or “too small to have a national impact”.

Those cuts are torments, public health experts say, because they come like the country make sustainable progress in reducing the number of deaths by Fentanyl. Many interventions can contribute to that progress, including a greater availability of the overdose somage spray Naloxon; More treatment beds, sober housing and peer counseling; And refuses in the strength and quantity of the illegal drug supply, they say. But studies so far have not convincingly demonstrated which of those factors deserve more focus and investments.

“It would be a tragedy if we defunder these programs without fully understanding what works and then our overdose speed starts to climb again,” said Dr. Matthew ChristiansenA doctor for addiction medicine in Huntington, W.Va., a city that once labeled land for the opioid crisis.

A Letter signed by more than 320 Academic experts in the field of behavioral medicine, sent to congress leaders on Monday, decided the cuts, including those to “community-based Naloxon distribution, Peer Outreach programs, drug use-related infectious diseases of prevention programs and medicine test strip programs.”

The President’s budget calls for terminating subsidies for “Harmreduction”, “ A strategy to prevent disease transmission and to keep drug users that has been largely accepted by providers of regular addiction treatment.

The budget leads the federal financial support for ‘dangerous activities that are invoiced as’ damage limitation’, including financing ‘Safe smoke packages and supplies’ And ‘spraying’ for drug users. “

That language was a callback to false reports in 2022 $ 30 million federal SCHARMREDUCTION SUBSIDY Can be used to buy blowjobs for smoking crack and meth. In fact A porter Of that subsidy, designated for ‘safer Rokukits’, was for supplies such as alcohol rods and lip balm. The subsidy also supported programs in states that allow sterile spray fairs, effective When reducing hepatitis C and HIV infection rates.

“You can’t just tell people to stop using drugs with a snap of the fingers,” Dr. Christiansen, a former director of the drug control policy of West Virginia. “These are tools to reduce opioids’ damage, while also helping to be successful in the long term.”

According to the annual study by the Federal Agency for Substant Favor, in 202327.2 million Americans aged 12 or older had a drug use disorder, 28.9 million had an alcohol consumption disorder and 7.5 million had both.

The budget leaves intact block fairs for states to combat addiction and mental illness. But without the additional subsidies from the Bureau, Hands-on Training and Monitoring, States cannot afford the many medical and social provisions that are necessary to prevent and treat addiction in addition to possible medicia reductions, Dr. Christiansen.

David HerzbergA professor in drug policy and history at the University of Buffalo said that Mr. Trump’s almost one-sided link goes back to the late 19th-century America, when the government is connected with border issues with border issues Opium caves with Chinese immigrants. For fear of the raids of Chinese employees and inflamed by press releases from Chinese men who use Opium to lure young white women into prostitution, the congress seriously limited Chinese immigration.

Then, like now, Mr. Herzberg said, political conservatives discovered that focusing on foreign drug suppliers was a muscular means to promote broader agenda.

Unlike very published drug attacksPeople who use chronic drugs have become Achterdoughts, usually only visible as street -irritating substances, their addiction considered the result of their own choices, he said. Chosen leaders who argue for their welfare risks to be arranged as a soft for crime.

“If politicians will stick their necks for them, I would be shocked,” said Mr. Herzberg.