Just a week after President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health crisis, the White House commission on the issue released their recommendations.
The 150 page report laid out 56 points, in order to begin tackling the drug abuse and overdose problem in the country. Their recommendations ranged from streamlining federal funding for the problem, to offering more training for doctors who prescribe the drugs, to ending the evaluation of doctors based on ‘pain scores.’
Doctors on the South Plains said we aren’t immune to the problem.
“It’s very scary, unfortunately though. We are seeing more and more substance abuse, more overdoses come in,” Dr. Juan Fitz said, adding that an overdose patient had already come into the ER at Covenant Medical Center that day.
He said he’s worried about where the funding would come from to tackle these issues.
“It has a lot of criteria and has a lot of recommendations. It is a 150 page report, but nowhere does it say how it is going to be funded. How are we going to get to that point, though? Dr. Fitz said.
The report called on Congress to “appropriate sufficient funds (as soon as possible) to implement the Commission’s recommendations. 175 Americans are dying a day. Congress must act.”
Another key point in the report was the need to open more drug courts in federal jurisdictions, to try and divert people from prison to addiction treatment.
“I’m all for drug courts, I think they are fantastic,” Cole Watts said. “I am a graduate in 2007, and I owe everything I have probably today to them. They greatly reduce recidivism rates, they greatly reduce drug offenders…violent and nonviolent.”
Watts helped found Stages of Recovery Addiction Services in Lubbock, and has seen the effects of the problem first-hand. Two of his clients recently stopped showing up to treatment.
“Both of them had passed away within a month. One of them was 19 and one of them was 22,” Watts said.
He said that all addiction is an issue, but that of late, he has seen an uptick in issues with opioids.
“So we are looking at a lot of deaths in a short amount of time,” Watts said.
For the full White House report, CLICK HERE.
