President Trump has declared war on the opioid crisis, authorising his administration to use all emergency and other authorities in their power to counteract the problem. This decision came in response to recommendations from the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis.

Commenting at his private golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump referred to the opioid crisis as a “tremendous problem in our country, and we’re going to get it taken care of as well as it can be taken care of, which hopefully will be better than any other country which also has the same problem or similar problems.”

Trump went on to say:

“The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency. It’s a  national emergency. We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis … We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency. It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had.”

Trump continued:

“You know, when I was growing up they had the LSD and they had certain generations of drugs. There’s never been anything like what’s happened to this country over the last four or five years. And I have to say this in all fairness, this is a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem. This is happening worldwide. But this is a national emergency and we are drawing documents now to so attest.”

Opioids are derived from the opium poppy, or a synthetic imitation thereof, and includes morphine, heroin, tramadol, oxycodone, methadone, and so forth. According to a CBS report from December 20th, more Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016 than anything else.