White House launches new heroin strategy

WASHINGTON — The White House launched a new strategy to combat the heroin epidemic Monday, pledging $5 million in federal grants to help the hardest-hit counties.

The grants are part of a broader $13.4 million aid package for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas — the 28 areas where Congress has appropriated additional funding to help local drug enforcement, treatment and prevention efforts.

The $2.5 million heroin response strategy will be focused on areas in the eastern United States hardest hit by heroin and related drugs. The effort will help coordinate real-time information about heroin use and trafficking along a corridor from Virginia to Maine, and incorporate both health and safety perspectives.

"I think what was really engaging about this proposal is that we know heroin trafficking and heroin use knows no boundaries,"  said Michael Botticelli, the White House's Director of National Drug Control Policy. "We know that law enforcement has a key role to play, but it’s not the only solution to the issue."

While the grants don't provide any new money — only Congress can do that — the new heroin strategy is "targeting the resources we have already to deal with our biggest drug threats," Botticelli said.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

But critics of the national drug policy say the announcement is "one step forward, two steps back."

“Half of what they’re doing is right – the focus on health and overdose prevention – but the other half, the side that focuses on the failed arrest and incarceration policies of the past is destined to ruin lives and fail,” said Bill Piper, director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s office of national affairs.

Heroin use among women has doubled over the last decade, according the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The surge is due in part to people moving from prescription painkillers to heroin as the pills have become more difficult for addicts to obtain. "We also know the increase in heroin use has been linked to the increase of very cheap, very pure heroin, often laced with additives, in many parts of the country," Botticelli said.

In 1998, Congress banned the use of High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas funding to directly fund drug treatment programs. So instead, the new grants will allow the hiring of coordinators in each region. A public health coordinator will help track heroin overdoses and issue warnings about dangerous batches of heroin, and a public safety coordinator will track intelligence about heroin trafficking. The grants will also provide training to police officers and medical personnel with less experience in dealing with heroin.

Camden, N.J. Police Chief J. Scott Thomson said the new strategy "addresses this from more than just a law enforcement perspective. We can't arrest our way out of this problem," he said,

The heroin strategy focuses on designated counties in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was quick to applaud the effort, calling it "a positive development for Kentucky’s efforts to fight the use of heroin that is hitting the commonwealth particularly hard."