{"id":27697,"date":"2025-05-13T19:28:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T19:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27697"},"modified":"2025-05-13T20:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T20:23:09","slug":"trumps-focus-on-punishing-drug-dealers-may-hurt-drug-users-trying-to-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=27697","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Focus on Punishing Drug Dealers May Hurt Drug Users Trying to Quit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Public health and addiction experts fear millions could lose access to treatment and prevention services if the administration\u2019s proposed cuts are enacted.<\/p>\n

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President Trump has long railed against drug traffickers. He has said they should be given the death penalty<\/a> \u201cfor their heinous acts.\u201d On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order<\/a> listing cartels as \u201cterrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many public health and addiction experts fear that his budget proposals and other actions effectively punish people who use drugs and struggle with addiction.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has vowed to reduce overdose deaths, one of the country\u2019s deadliest public health crises, by emphasizing law enforcement<\/a>, border patrols and tariffs against China and Mexico to keep out fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. But it is also seeking huge cuts to programs that reduce drug demand.<\/p>\n

The budget it submitted to Congress this month seeks to eliminate more than a billion dollars for national and regional<\/a> treatment and prevention services. The primary federal agency addressing drug use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services<\/a> Administration, has so far lost about half its workers to layoffs under the Trump administration and is slated to be collapsed<\/a> into the new Administration for a Healthy America, whose purview will reach far beyond mental illness and drug use.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And if reductions to Medicaid being discussed by Republicans in Congress are realized, millions of Americans will be unable to continue, much less start treatment.<\/p>\n

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The budget itself says that ending drug trafficking \u201cstarts with secure borders and a commitment to law and order\u201d and that it is cutting addiction services deemed duplicative or \u201ctoo small to have a national impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Public health and addiction experts fear millions could lose access to treatment and prevention services if the administration\u2019s proposed cuts are enacted.President Trump has long railed against drug traffickers. He has said they should be given the death penalty \u201cfor their heinous acts.\u201d On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order listing cartels as \u201cterrorist organizations.\u201dBut many public health and addiction experts fear that his budget proposals and other actions effectively punish people who use drugs and struggle with addiction.The Trump administration has vowed to reduce overdose deaths, one of the country\u2019s deadliest public health crises, by emphasizing law enforcement, border patrols and tariffs against China and Mexico to keep out fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. But it is also seeking huge cuts to programs that reduce drug demand.The budget it submitted to Congress this month seeks to eliminate more than a billion dollars for national and regional treatment and prevention services. The primary federal agency addressing drug use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, has so far lost about half its workers to layoffs under the Trump administration and is slated to be collapsed into the new Administration for a Healthy America, whose purview will reach far beyond mental illness and drug use.And if reductions to Medicaid being discussed by Republicans in Congress are realized, millions of Americans will be unable to continue, much less start treatment.The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The budget itself says that ending drug trafficking \u201cstarts with secure borders and a commitment to law and order\u201d and that it is cutting addiction services deemed duplicative or \u201ctoo small to have a national impact.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27699,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27700,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27697\/revisions\/27700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}