President Donald Trump will declare opioid overdoses a public-health emergency later today, USA Today reports. A commission Trump had created to study drug use in America recommended he do so in July. “We need to have the executive branch, their departments, and the Congress completely focused on this issue as the national emergency that it is,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, chair of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, said at the time.
Trump will declare the emergency under the Public Service Health Act, USA Today reports. The move could help officials ensure addiction treatment and overdose-reversing drugs are covered for more Americans, among other benefits, as Pacific Standard previously reported. However, the public-health emergency fund, which would be opened up to opioid addiction treatment, is sorely depleted: As of July, it contained only $57,000.
