美国国家公共电台 NPR From Alaska To Florida, States Respond To Opioid Crisis With Emergency Declarations

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Public health officials and others concerned about the nation's opioid crisis are pleased with President Trump's intention to declare it a national emergency. Trump's presidential commission on opioids said an emergency declaration would allow for immediate² action and send a message to Congress that more funding is needed. Governors in six states have already declared emergencies to deal with opioids, as NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE³: The states that have declared emergencies on opioids show the national scope of the crisis. They range from Alaska and Arizona in the west to Florida, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts in the east. In Maryland, where 550 overdose deaths were reported in just the first three months of this year, Governor Larry Hogan declared opioids a public health emergency in March.

CLAY STAMP: It's a call to order and a call to action.

ALLEN: Clay Stamp was appointed to head the state's Opioid Operational Command Center. He comes to the job with a background as an emergency manager and compares the effort to the state's response to a hurricane.

STAMP: We need all the right people in the room to make sure that we can make a decision in time to move people out of harm's way, shelter them and everything else, getting everybody's attention focused, and strategies and driving programs and processes. This is no different.

ALLEN: Since declaring an emergency, Maryland has tightened⁴ practices for those prescribing opioids and received a waiver to allow Medicaid to pay for residential¹ drug treatment. Massachusetts was the first state to declare opioids a public health emergency in 2014. Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard's Chan School of Public Health, says the governor at that time, Deval Patrick, acted on the recommendation of a special task force.

MICHAEL BARNETT: To open up funding for the Department of Public Health. For instance, to open up more treatment beds, to create funding and make it easier for legislation, for first responders to use naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses, in the field.

ALLEN: Making the naloxone freely available and putting it in the hands of more people has helped save lives. That's been one of the most immediate impacts of emergency declarations in states that have issued them. Arizona's governor declared a public health emergency in June. Will Humble⁵ with Arizona's Public Health Association says with that declaration, the state began gathering⁶ badly needed data.

WILL HUMBLE: You can put together a more complete picture of what the epidemic⁷ looks like, who it's hitting, where it's hitting, who's doing the prescribing, what portion of it are fentanyl and heroin⁸ and what portion are the prescribed pills. And as you get that more complete information, it allows you to craft better public policy.

ALLEN: In Florida, the emergency declaration issued in May enabled the governor to quickly allocate⁹ some $27 million in federal funds for drug treatment and prevention. Alton Taylor heads the Drug Abuse Foundation in Palm Beach County, which last year saw nearly 600 fatal overdoses, mostly related to opioids. Taylor says although the emergency declaration was welcome, Palm Beach County and the rest of the state still don't have enough publicly funded beds available to treat people with opioid addictions¹⁰.

ALTON TAYLOR: Today, as I'm talking to you, we have over 200 people on our waiting lists. These are people where we've done a clinical assessment¹¹ on them and determined¹² them to be in need of that service.

ALLEN: Despite the emergency declaration, Florida, unlike some other states, hasn't tapped Medicaid to help pay for drug treatment. Taylor says he's hopeful President Trump's emergency declaration, when finalized¹³, will free up more money to treat people in recovery from opioid addictions. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.