ROANOKE, Va. — President Barack Obama’s administration’s 2014 drug policy will focus on curbing heroin use and prescription painkiller abuse while continuing to oppose the legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use.
Officials are particularly concerned about preventing fatal overdoses, said Michael Botticelli, acting director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. He outlined the administration’s blueprint at a news conference Wednesday at a drug treatment facility in Roanoke.
He acknowledged that the strategy does not substantially differ from past drug policy positions but said the White House is now focused “in-depth” on the problem associated with the abuse of opioids, which include heroin and painkillers.
“With the reports of increasing heroin use in many American communities … we are growing increasingly concerned by the potential transition from prescription opioid abuse to heroin and injected drug use,” Botticelli said.
In March, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the increase in heroin-related deaths an urgent health crisis and said first responders should carry Narcan, an overdose reversal drug. This year, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died from a toxic mix of drugs including heroin and cocaine. In 2013, Glee actor Cory Monteith died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol.
The news conference came one day after Washington became the second state, after Colorado, to allow people to buy recreational marijuana legally.