New White House Initiative Aims To Fight Escalating Heroin Deaths

The program will see 15 health policy analysts and 15 drug intelligence officers collecting information on heroin overdoses and trends in heroin trafficking for distribution to local law enforcement.

The plan would concentrate on tracing the sources of heroin, the place a lethal opiate additive blamed for a rising share of current overdose deaths is being added and who’s distributing the drug to sellers, the newspaper stated.

The White House announced a two-and-a-half million dollar initiative aimed to target heroin trafficking along the Eastern US seaboard.

“Our approach needs to be broad and inclusive”, the Post quoted a senior White House official as saying.

The public safety coordinator, meanwhile, will provide support and intelligence to law enforcement looking to disrupt the heroin supply.

The Post said the initiative came in reaction to a sharp increase in heroin use and deaths, particularly in New England and other Northeastern states, which will be covered in the plan. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) informs that the number of deaths caused by heroine overdoses has quadrupled in the past ten (10) years.

“We’re seeing it pop up all around the country”, acting DEA chief Chuck Rosenberg told NPR public radio this week.

A massive uptick in heroin use nationwide has been linked to the growing use of addictive prescription opiates, and the widespread availability of cheap heroin.

The White House said the plan would be training first responders on use of medication that is able to reverse overdoses. Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is an overdose reversing antidote that people can administer like an Epi-Pen or nasal spray.

“Heroin is killing people and too often, public health goes one way and law enforcement goes the other”, the official added.

The program initially will cost $2.5 million and apply to 15 states in the Northeast.

At the same time, the dangers of heroin have been publicly underscored by the sudden deaths of celebrities such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, who overdosed in his New York apartment in February of 2014.

Each of the five regions will have one coordinator with a public health focus, working alongside a coordinator focused on public safety. “This program is designed not to create any new agency but to bring people together to break out of those silos”.