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PARKERSBURG -- A declaration that opioid addiction is a national emergency will create the urgency needed and open more federal resources to combating the epidemic, a U.S. senator from West Virginia said Tuesday.
"We're going to need billions" of dollars to fight the problem, said Sen. Joe Manchin.
Manchin spoke with reporters from West Virginia by telephone Tuesday afternoon, hours before President Trump delivered the State of the Union speech to Congress. On the phone with Manchin was Jan Rader, chief of the Huntington Fire Department.
Rader is on the front lines in the war against opioid overdoses and fatalities in Huntington where the average is five overdoses a day, Manchin said.
"Sometimes it's too late," and the person is dead by the time responders arrive, Rader said.
Manchin said he hoped the president will address opioid in his speech. Opioid addiction was declared a national health emergency, but the designation of as a national emergency would give it the urgency for swift response and federal resources for treatment, education including education of prescribers and getting people off the addiction, he said.
"We need funding and we need it now," Rader said.
The senator said he supports shifting the allocation of funds for opioid addiction from being population-based to based on per capita deaths, of which West Virginia leads the nation. Of the millions of dollars available nationwide, the state received about $7 million, he said.
"It would be a lot different, a lot different," Manchin said.
Manchin said he also hopes funding for opioid addiction would be part of the spending plan to be approved by Congress by Feb. 8 to keep government operating. The economic cost and lost production from addiction is in the billions of dollars, too, he said.
"There's not a part of the country that's not affected," Manchin said.