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PARKERSBURG - President Donald Trump should declare a national emergency over the opioid epidemic, as recommended in a report to the president, a West Virginia senator said.
The President's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis Monday in its preliminary findings said the foremost recommendation was to "declare a national emergency under either the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford Act."
With 142 people dying every day, "America is enduring a death toll equal to Sept. 11 every three weeks," the report said.
It's a crisis, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said.
"Declaring a national emergency will allow the administration and Congress to act with the immediacy that's needed to end this epidemic," Manchin said.
The report also incorporates provisions from Jessie's Law to ensure that substance abuse treatment records are more easily shared among medical professionals, he said.
Although not enacted, Jessie's Law would require the Department of Health and Human Services to develop standards for hospitals and doctors to include opioid addiction in patients medical records.
"I was particularly pleased to see the commission's report cite Jessie's Law as a way to ensure medical professionals have full knowledge of their patient's previous opioid addiction when consent is given," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said. Jessie's Law was sponsored by Manchin and Capito.
Capito said the report endorses several solutions she has supported, including increased funding to support substance abuse treatment, educational requirements for doctors and expanded access to medication-assisted treatment.
"This report demonstrates the severity of this problem and offers solutions that can help us build on the momentum we have created," she said.
The commission was led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said heroin deaths outpaced homicides by guns for the first time in 2015 and a federal study found that prescription painkillers are more widely used than tobacco.