The US executive wants to do everything to stem the problem. The White House on Thursday announced more than $450 million in additional funding to help tackle the overdose crisis in the United States. She was pleased with the stabilization of the number of overdoses in the country for more than a year, even if the overall number remains worrying.
The United States still records a dramatic number of overdoses: around 110,000 over one year between March 2022 and 2023, according to health authorities. But “overdoses stabilized in 2022, after a sharp increase from 2019 to 2021, and this shows that our efforts are working,” Rahul Gupta, director of the drug enforcement office, told a press conference. to the White House.
A budget dedicated to the fight against opioids in rural areas
“My administration will continue to ensure that our nation has the resources we need to deal with the epidemic of overdoses,” said Thursday President Joe Biden on X (formerly Twitter). The power, however, admitted that this stabilization did not concern deaths linked to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has flooded the drug market in the United States, and the main culprit of overdoses in the country. The new funds announced Thursday should in particular make it possible to improve prevention and access to treatment.
Some $80 million is dedicated to fighting opioids in rural areas, including expanding access to naloxone, an antidote that can resuscitate someone overdosing on an opioid (e.g. fentanyl ). In the spring, the American Medicines Agency (FDA) had for the first time authorized the sale of naloxone without a prescription, in the form of a nasal spray known under its brand name Narcan. It then authorized in July the free sale of a generic.