Obama joins Rogers at National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, says it’s time to focus on treatment over incarceration
By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
The fifth annual national summit on prescription drug abuse, started by U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky, was the largest, broadest and highest-profile yet.
A non-prescription drug was added to the title of the four-day event, making it the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit. It drew more than 1,900 to Atlanta, including President Barack Obama, who joined an hour-long panel to talk about new ways to deal with a growing opioid and heroin epidemic.
“The rapid growth of this summit is truly a testament to the power of unity. Everyone here has one common goal – to save lives from the dark clenches of drug abuse,” Rogers, a Republican from Somerset, said in a news release.
The summit was hosted by Operation UNITE, a Kentucky non-profit created by Rogers that leads education, treatment and law enforcement initiatives in 32 counties in Southern and Eastern Kentucky. The acronym stands for Unlawful Narcotics Investigations, Treatment and Education.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. someone dies every 20 minutes from an opioid overdose and Kentucky has one of the nation’s highest rates, with more than 1,000 deaths a year from it.
The University of Kentucky and UK HealthCare, which helped sponsor the summit, sent a delegation of executive, clinical and research leaders, including President Eli Capilouto as one of the keynote presenters, according to a UK news release.
“Too many Kentucky families are too often confronted by the dark and painful scourge of prescription drug abuse and opioid addiction,” Capilouto said. “It’s an epidemic that penetrates communities across the nation, both urban and rural, but has especially intractable roots in Appalachia and the regions served by the University of Kentucky.”
Obama opened his remarks on the panel by thanking Rogers,who is also co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse, and UNITE, “the organization that has been carrying the laboring oar on this issue for many years now. We are very grateful to them.”
Kentucky Health News is an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
