@article{10.1001/jama.2024.4997,
    author = {Saloner, Brendan},
    title = "{The Overdose Crisis in the 2024 Election—Political Fights and Practical Problems}",
    journal = {JAMA},
    year = {2024},
    month = {04},
    abstract = "{The 2024 presidential election arrives at a moment of profound pessimism about the US addiction and overdose crisis. Overdose deaths, which were already surging before the COVID-19 pandemic, have reached new and alarming heights, claiming more than 100 000 lives in the 12 months before September 2023. The overdose crisis is substantially driven by the proliferation of illicitly manufactured fentanyl in the street drug supply, increasingly in combination with cocaine and methamphetamine.In US politics, the overdose crisis has been both a unifying challenge and a source of major ideological division. A broad bipartisan consensus has emerged over the last decade supporting ongoing congressional appropriations, including the State Opioid Response grants. These appropriations have invested in the capacity of state and local government to respond with naloxone distribution and provision of medications for opioid use disorder. This bipartisan consensus has a basis in a simple reality—the overdose crisis affects all communities and elected officials have experienced loss in their own families. Notably, Donald Trump won a strong margin of victory in 2016 in counties that were hit the hardest by the overdose crisis. Different than the crack epidemic of the 1980s—which was heavily concentrated among Black, urban communities—lawmakers of both parties have expressed more willingness to conceive of the opioid crisis as one that warrants a public health, rather than strictly a law enforcement, response. The public health framing reflects an optimistic vision that, with enough focus on prevention, treatment, and harm reduction, it is possible to save lives and restore communities that have been hit hard.}",
    issn = {0098-7484},
    doi = {10.1001/jama.2024.4997},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2024.4997},
    eprint = {/journals/jama/articlepdf/2817848/jama\_saloner\_2024\_vp\_240031\_1713178799.9266.pdf},
}