Elizabeth Warren takes on opioid crisis
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren yesterday called on Congress to allocate $100 billion over the next 10 years to combat the opioid epidemic.
At a press conference and panel discussion at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, the Massachusetts Democrat said she and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) plan to introduce legislation next week that would funnel the most money to communities with the highest drug overdose rates and those with the highest raw number of overdoses.
“Massachusetts would receive tens of millions of dollars a year … (and) reduce the stigma around addiction head-on by treating it like any other disease,” Warren said. “Addiction is not a moral failing.”
The senator called on the federal government to treat the opioid epidemic similarly to how it attacked the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
