"In his first year back in office, President Trump reshaped U.S. drug policy and the response to fentanyl deaths in sweeping, often chaotic fashion, rapidly dismantling efforts launched by the Biden administration aimed at expanding drug treatment. Many experts credit Biden-era public health policies with saving tens of thousands of lives. But with new laws, executive orders, budget cuts, and military redeployments, Trump pivoted the nation from those strategies to a militarized drug war."
""From day one of the Trump administration we declared an all-out war on the dealers, smugglers, traffickers and cartels," Trump said in July, during a signing ceremony for the Halt Fentanyl Act. Trump has launched U.S. Naval strikes against alleged drug boats; designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations; classified fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction; and deployed National Guard troops in American cities and along the U.S.-Mexico border."
"Meanwhile, his administration threw into question support for even basic federally funded addiction treatment programs, at one point temporarily freezing $140 million in federal grants as front-line care providers scrambled to maintain services. Scrapping the public health approach Trump's rapid realignment of U.S. drug policy stems in part from his assertion that Biden's effort to reduce fentanyl deaths was a wholesale failure."
President Trump replaced Biden-era public-health strategies for fentanyl with aggressive enforcement, new laws, executive orders, budget cuts, and military actions. He declared an all-out war on dealers and cartels, authorized naval strikes on alleged drug boats, designated cartels as terrorist organizations, classified fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, and deployed National Guard troops domestically and at the border. The administration temporarily froze $140 million in federal grants for addiction treatment. Biden-era policies had expanded access to buprenorphine and naloxone and increased federal spending by tens of billions, contributing to sharp declines in fatal overdoses in 2023 and 2024.
Read at www.npr.org
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