The Biden administration has begun providing details of how it will address the nation’s drug crisis, saying the priorities will be a focus on treatment, recovery and harm reduction. Regina LaBelle, who has been appointed acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy—which oversees and coordinates federal drug initiatives—said the government would expand the addiction workforce and launch prevention efforts, including making overdose reversal drugs more widely available. In addition, she said there is a need to improve data collection to ensure that “culturally competent” prevention programs address growing drug use and overdose among Black, Latino and Native American communities.
Other initiatives include possible use of a fentanyl test strip to detect the synthetic opioid in illicit drugs, given the rise of overdose fatalities linked to the substance. LaBelle also said President Biden endorses such harm reduction programs as syringe exchange sites for drug users. Some critics say the new administration has been slow to take on the drug epidemic as it deals with multiple crises, even as overdose deaths last year reached a record 81,000, the majority of them opioid-related. Key permanent positions such as the “drug czar” have not yet been filled (LaBelle, who was chief of staff of ONDCP in the Obama administration, is acting director), and neither has the head of the Food and Drug Administration. And there has been no word so far on Biden’s promise during the campaign to enact an ambitious $125 billion program to combat the opioid epidemic over the next decade.