President Donald Trump said Thursday the opioid crisis was "a national emergency" and pledged "to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money" battling the epidemic.
"The opioid crisis is an emergency — and I'm saying officially right now it's an emergency," Trump told reporters outside his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., as Vice President Mike Pence looked on. "It's a national emergency.
"We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis.
"We're going to draw it up — and we're going to make it a national emergency," Trump said. "It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had."
Trump held a briefing Tuesday on the crisis in Bedminster, vowing to "fight this deadly epidemic — and the United States will win."
The president's drug commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, recently called on him to declare a national emergency to deal with the opioid crisis.
An initial report from the commission said that the approximately 142 deaths each day from drug overdoses mean the death toll was "equal to Sept. 11 every three weeks."
The White House said it was still reviewing the report's recommendations in the report.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said after the briefing the administration could deploy the necessary resources and attention without declaring a national emergency, though he stressed that "all things are on the table for the president."
In his comments to reporters Thursday, Trump likened the opioid crisis to that involving LSD in the 1970s.
"When I was growing up, they had LSD — and they had certain generations of drugs," Trump said.
"There's never been anything like what's happened to this country over the last four or five years."
He added opioids are "a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem.
"This is happening worldwide," he said. "But this is a national emergency — and we are drawing documents now to so attest."
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