Politico: Kentucky among red states to reject Trump’s shift on overdose prevention
President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, are cutting the federal budget for harm reduction initiatives that are meant to make illicit drug use less deadly, such as syringe exchange programs and drug testing strips, Amanda Friedman reports for Politico. But some red states are boosting their own funding for those programs.
Kennedy, a former heroin addict who credits Alcoholics Anonymous and its 12-step group support program with saving his life, said last month, “Harm reduction doesn’t work.”
Friedman reports that the “root of the split on the right” is the increase in fatal overdoses that occurred during the pandemic, which have since plummeted, adding that Republican state officials think harm reduction should receive some of the credit. Kentucky has seen four straight years of declines in overdose deaths.
“The Trump administration has continued to champion access to the opioid-reversal medication naloxone, and Kennedy has also endorsed continued use of medication that helps people addicted to opioids avoid fentanyl, such as methadone and buprenorphine,” Friedman writes. However, Kennedy favors spiritual-based programs.
Friedman reports that research shows naloxone reduces overdose deaths, and syringe exchanges decrease blood-borne diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis. However, she writes that evidence is less clear when it comes to other interventions, such as the use of fentanyl test strips, due to gaps in domestic research.