A new report suggests that the government needs to spend more money to fight the opioid abuse problem — and that money should be spent differently than it is now.
The report by the Clinton Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recommends additional funding be allocated to help Americans who are struggling with opioid addictions.
Among the suggestions the report makes are securing funding to study new packaging and designs of drug containers that could help slow down the epidemic. Another idea is to dedicate federal money to build and maintain treatment centers in hard-hit areas.
"Data on the effectiveness of packaging interventions is limited. Research is needed to evaluate the engineering innovations under development and to inform future development," the report reads.
"Treatment services are disproportionately distributed across communities and do not always reflect need. Using federal resources to identify communities most in need of treatment services and to expand treatment capacity will help to address this disparity."
President Donald Trump announced a new effort this week to help combat opioid abuse, declaring it a national public health emergency.
The initiative does not automatically include funding, so the White House has urged lawmakers to come up with ways to dedicate federal dollars to the plan.
"It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction," Trump said.
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