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State Health Experts Decry Punishment Focus In Trump's Opioid Plan

By Indiana Public Media News Staff

Posted March 21, 2018

President Trump unveiled his formal plan to combat the opioid epidemic earlier this week.

It focuses on educating Americans and physicians in a bid to curtail over-prescription of opioid pain-killers, cracking down on illegal foreign and domestic sources of opioids, and enhancing treatment options for addiction and overdose.

But some public health experts say it's the initiative's emphasis on greater punishments for opioid trafficking and use that could be a problem, especially in light of Trump's recent calls for enforcing the death penalty for some drug dealers.

Dennis Watson is an Associate Professor of Social Behavioral Sciences at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. He says he's concerned about the impact the increased punishment could have on the program's overall effectiveness.

"I'm really afraid that this focus on criminal justice is going to make it less likely that people are actually going to feel comfortable seeking out treatment, going to places like syringe service programs and also calling 9-1-1 in the event of an overdose," Watson says.

Watson says Trump's initiative evokes memories of the "War on Drugs," and says it could to fail to curtail opiate usage while unfairly targeting America's poorest and encouraging recidivism.

"We're taking people that are in poverty already, we're putting them in prison, and then we're letting them out expecting them to go back and be a productive member of society and that is just not possible with a felony background," Watson says.

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill voiced his support for the plan on Monday. He praised President Trump for asking Congress to pass legislation reducing the amount of drugs needed to give mandatory minimum sentences to drug traffickers who knowingly sell some illegal opioids.

According to the Centers for Disease and Control, 1,767 Hoosiers died of a drug overdose between July 2016 and July 2017.

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