Office of National Drug Control Policy Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

National Drug Czar Says Overdose Decreases Positive, But More To Do

Early Center for Disease Control (CDC) data shows a dramatic fall of 12 percent in overdose death rates across the U.S. in the last year. During the same period, West Virginia’s drug overdose rate fell almost 11 percent, nearly keeping pace with the nation.

To gain insight into this encouraging development, Appalachia Health News Reporter, Emily Rice, spoke with West Virginia’s own Dr. Rahul Gupta, the nation’s director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDPC). Here is that conversation.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Rice: At the end of your statement, you say the decline in overdose deaths is both a beacon of hope and an urgent call to action. The advocates that I’ve spoken with here on the ground in West Virginia also see it as a call to action but are hesitant to celebrate these numbers because they are provisional and because they say one overdose death is still too many. So in speaking about the drug epidemic, how should we interpret this provisional data from the CDC?

Gupta: I think we should look at this in the same way we have always looked at this type of data. When President Biden and Vice President Harris took office in January of 2021 this similar type of data showed that drug overdose deaths were increasing at 31 percent year over year, 31 percent. And this is the reason that from day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris made it a top priority, and made historic public health and public safety efforts over those last four years to reduce our drug overdose deaths across the country. So now you look at this data, and we can see the latest version of data showing that 10 percent reduction in overdose deaths. This is, again, in the reverse direction of what we were seeing with this similar type of data of a 31 percent year-over-year increase. Now, having said that these aren’t just numbers. These are lives, and we didn’t get from the number of drug overdoses increasing by more than 30 percent year after year, to decreasing by accident. It has not been an accident. It is because President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made this issue a top priority on day one, and set out to transform the way our nation approaches this epidemic through a whole of society response. So over the past year, the Biden/Harris administration has taken more historic action and made more unprecedented investments that I want to talk about than ever before, ever before in the history of this country to address this crisis head-on.

You know, if you see the President’s 2022 strategy, it was very clearly outlined that if we have a clear strategy on policy, and we invest in those, we will see this type of progress. So this is why the president really looked at this and the vice president as how to best address two key drivers: One is untreated addiction. The other is the trafficking profits. On the untreated addiction side, under the leadership of President Biden and Vice President Harris, now we have removed decades-long barriers to treatment for substance use disorder. We’ve invested more than 40 percent more than the previous administration in funding for treatment in communities all across the country, especially in West Virginia. And we’ve expanded access to life-saving overdose medications, overdose medications like Naloxone, which is not only available over the counter but at the lowest price cost it has ever been in history. Now on the public safety side, we’ve seized more fentanyl at the port of entry in the last two years than in the past five years combined. We’ve also added more drug detection machines at the border to stop the flow of fentanyl, and sentenced hundreds of targets involved in drug trafficking, from the illicit Chinese chemical companies to drug cartels to their lawyers and enablers. And then we finally also work to strengthen the international efforts to disrupt the entire global illicit drug trade. So this progress that we’re seeing is important to take this milestone. But also remember, we have so much more work ahead, but at this point in time and history, we seem to understand what policies do work and why they have to be invested in. And this is exactly why the President and the Vice President are not going to stop. They have American’s backs, and they will continue to fight, both in Congress and with anyone that does not believe in the unity agenda, as Biden would say that this is not a red state or blue state issue. This is America’s issue, and we need to make sure that we are addressing this as a country together.

Rice: What do you think has been the most effective measure in decreasing overdose deaths that the Biden-Harris administration has implemented since January 2021? While I know it will take time more data and research to determine which substance use disorder initiatives were most effective, do you think some of those can be attributed to the ready availability of Narcan and Naloxone approved by the FDA, over the counter, etc?

Gupta: Well, certainly, I think there’s been a number of aspects, both on the public health and public safety side, that includes approving, as you mentioned, the overdose medications for over the counter purchase and making sure that they are affordable. So an historic investment in getting those life saving medications to the community no matter where you are. For instance, the State Opioid Response (SOR) and Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) programs have delivered nearly 10 million kits, 10 million kits of these overdose reversal medications to communities. We’ve convened the U.S. drug manufacturers who have FDA approval of overdose reversal medication through different ways and how they access and have the affordability to save more lives. We’ve also, in addition to expanding treatment access, we now have 15 times more providers across the country than we did before in the prior administration. We have also made sure that there is telehealth available for methadone in the long term, and the barriers to methadone is lifted.

When you look at the prevention, the early intervention, and harm reduction approach that’s been the first time in the history of the United States that it has been federally, not only policy, but also been funded, then you look at treatment expansion in historic ways, and finally, the recovery we have been working to develop a recovery ready nation, through recovery ready businesses, all of these combined with historic seizures of fentanyl at the border and destroy the border having are separate but combined and integrated action that has worked, just as a strategy has mentioned, addressing those two key drivers of untreated addiction, as well as the drug trafficking process.

Rice: Speaking to your home state, one of the hardest, if not the hardest, hit by the opioid epidemic, what are some steps that can be taken by West Virginians working in prevention and treatment of substance use disorder to ensure overdose rates continue to fall?

Gupta: Well, thank you for asking that. I was just back home a couple of months ago, and we met with the One Box initiative….this goes back to the holistic approach. I mean, when they reminded me that when I was a commissioner, we had funded $120,000 for this program and now we’re seeing the graduates of this program, the work of the program, and have peer recovery support specialists become available. It is this type of work. And then we saw 13 new commitments to the White House challenge to save lives from overdoses from colleges and universities working across West Virginia. Then we also had meetings with local officials and representatives from the students and other bodies, as well as including police, schools, community and health and partnerships. So you know, it’s heartwarming for me to see that we are making progress in my home state, but at the same time, it is really important to understand those we have lost and learned from them, as well as leave no stone unturned to make sure that we’re saving the next life that we can save. So it’s important to put all tools in the toolbox in order to, you know, save every life possible that we can through these evidence based, data driven policies that have now demonstrated, there’s clear demonstration that you know what the agenda that Vice President Harris and President Biden set out to do is having a positive impacts for the state, but we have so much more work to do.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Remembering James Earl Jones, Plus New Overdose Data, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, renowned actor James Earl Jones died earlier this month at age 93. He was part of the cast of the 1987 John Sayles film “Matewan,” which was shot in Thurmond, West Virginia.

Curtis Tate spoke to David Wohl, who once asked Jones to speak to his students at an acting class at West Virginia State University.

Plus, early data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a dramatic fall of 12 percent in overdose death rates across the United States in the last year. West Virginia’s drug overdose rate fell almost 11 percent during that time.

To gain insight into this encouraging development, Appalachia Health News Reporter Emily Rice spoke with West Virginia’s own Dr. Rahul Gupta, who directs the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University and Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

Maria Young produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Dr. Rahul Gupta Meets With State And Local Leaders Fighting Drug Epidemic

State and local leaders working to mitigate West Virginia’s substance use crisis met at the Capitol Friday to discuss their work with Dr. Rahul Gupta.

Dozens of West Virginians working to mitigate the state’s substance use crisis filled the Governor’s Conference Room at the Capitol building in Charleston on Friday to discuss their efforts with the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Dr. Rahul Gupta.

Gupta is originally from West Virginia and served as the Health Commissioner of the state under two governors before leading the opioid crisis response efforts as the state’s Chief Health Officer.

He has spent the week touring his home state for a variety of events, meetings and conversations.

At the roundtable discussion, Gupta heard from more than 30 of the state’s leaders about their work to reduce overdoses, increase access to addiction treatment and support recovery-ready workplaces.

“It’s been helpful because we’ve learned a number of things of how more dollars more resources can be released, what regulatory barriers might be there,” Gupta said. “How can we get more life-saving medications into the hands of people? And how can we expand treatment, balanced law enforcement as well as the public health side of this?”

The availability of the opioid overdose reversal drug, Naloxone, also known as Narcan, was a large topic of discussion at the roundtable.

“We are trying to get more Naloxone, the reversal drug for opioid overdose across communities, make it more available. We’ve done a few things. We’ve gotten it available over the counter. We’ve reduced significantly the price of it, we’ve extended more resources, more money to state to be able to purchase it,” Gupta said. “Now the hard part comes which is making sure that we are able to distribute that to high-risk populations where and when it’s needed.”

Gupta highlighted the Biden-Harris Administration’s “White House Challenge,” a call to action to stakeholders across all sectors to commit to saving lives by increasing training on and access to opioid overdose reversal medications.

“The goal here is to house Naloxone, make it available, train people on Naloxone and make sure that when somebody is overdosing from drugs, we have it available so we can save life, because saving life is the first step in getting people the help they need,” Gupta said. “That’s one of the reasons why we’re able to see a 5 percent decline in overdose deaths in 2023.”

While the national rate of overdose decreased, West Virginia saw a 1.34 percent increase during the same period, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Gupta: Biden To Focus On Opioids For State Of The Union Speech

Controlling fentanyl and reducing overdose deaths are expected to be a big part of President Biden’s State of the Union address according to Dr. Rahul Gupta, the former state health officer for West Virginia and now the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

During a press call before the speech, he discussed the overdose death rate.

“More than 100,000 Americans die from drug overdose or poisonings,” Gupta said. “That’s an American dying every five minutes of every hour of every day.”

Gupta said, in the last year, officials have seized nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, at the border.

“Domestically, we’ve seized 26,000 pounds of fentanyl, and denied nearly $9 billion of profits for drug traffickers,” he said. “And because of these efforts, combined with our historic public health advances, we’ve now seen five straight months – five straight months – where all those numbers have decreased. That’s almost 3,000 people who have not died, and instead are at the dinner table each night.”

Gupta said Biden will lay out a plan to continue to fight the problem.

“We’re going to build on the historic progress we’re making by using advanced technology to stop more fentanyl at the border and working with commercial package delivery companies to catch more packages containing fentanyl,” he said. “And we’re gonna work with Congress to permanently control fentanyl related substances so we can make sure that traffickers are held accountable.”

Gupta said Biden will launch a national campaign with Ad Council to educate young people on saving lives from the dangers of fentanyl and ensure that everyone who needs treatment for substance use disorder – including people who are incarcerated at higher risk for overdose death when they’re released – gets it. He said they also plan to expand access to life saving medications for opioid use disorder.

Separately, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., joined a bipartisan, bicameral group urging Biden to restore the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to a cabinet-level position. It was downgraded during the Obama administration.

Elevating the post would enable ONDCP to more effectively coordinate drug control efforts across federal agencies and enhance the Biden administration’s response to the opioid epidemic.

As a senator, Biden supported the ONDCP Director’s serving at the cabinet level.

Marino Withdraws from Consideration to Lead National Drug Control Policy Office

After national scrutiny, Pennsylvania Representative Tom Marino has withdrawn from consideration to lead the National Drug Control Policy office – a position commonly called the Drug Czar. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has been vocal about his disapproval of the nomination, applauded the move.

The announcement comes just days after an article was released by The Washington Post and CBS’s “60 Minutes” reporting Marino sponsored a 2016 law that weakened the Drug Enforcement Administration’s authority to stop companies from distributing opioids in already devastated areas.

Senator Manchin told reporters in a press call he would like to see President Donald Trump nominate someone who’s in the medical field and who may have dealt with the epidemic first-hand.

“I would say the perfect person would be somebody that has the passion to fight it and cannot be swayed by all the influence, or all the money, or anything else that has swayed people before from doing their job here,” Manchin said.

President Trump told reporters Monday he would consider withdrawing his nomination, but Marino beat him to the decision.

In a letter to Trump, Manchin called the opioid crisis “the biggest public health crisis since HIV/AIDS.” West Virginia is number one in the nation for most overdose deaths related to opioids.

Two W.Va. Counties Designated Drug Trafficking Areas

The federal government will provide additional help to two West Virginia counties to reduce drug abuse and drug trafficking.

Berkeley and Harrison counties are among 26 counties and cities in 11 states designated as high intensity drug trafficking areas.

Office of National Drug Control Policy acting director Michael Botticelli announced the designations on Monday.

The designation increases the counties’ access to federal resources and information sharing among federal, state and local law enforcement.

Seventeen other West Virginia counties previously were designated as high intensity drug trafficking areas.