Report: Biden's Anti-Drug Laws Have Worsened Opioid Crisis Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden during a campaign rally at Eakins Oval in Philadelphia, Saturday, May 18, 2019. (Matt Rourke/AP)
By Jeffrey Rodack | Thursday, 23 May 2019 08:31 AM
The tough anti-drug laws Joe Biden promoted for decades have worsened the opioid epidemic, Politico is reporting.
As a senator from Delaware, Biden wrote or sponsored several laws that public health experts now say have made the opioid crisis far deadlier than it has to be, Politico said.
Some experts have been pushing for “overdose prevention sites” – safe-injection facilities where people with opioid addiction issues can use drugs under medical supervision as a way to avoid fatal overdoes. Those providing medical supervision would help people find treatment for opioid use disorder.
“We are at a huge crisis and that’s why we need safe-injection facilities, safe house[s], other places where we can get people in,” said Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s medical school.
But standing in the way of the overdose prevention sites is the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 – a law Biden co-sponsored, Politico said. It makes it illegal to “knowingly open, lease, rent, use or maintain any place whether permanently or temporarily, for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using any controlled substance.”
The threat of federal lawsuits seeking to enforce the law have blocked activists and medical experts in their efforts to open opioid prevention sites, Politico reported.
Politico noted another law, co-authored by Biden, has had the effect of turning accidental overdoses into homicides and discouraging people using drugs from calling for help when they are around someone who has overdosed.
“Biden wrote and passed this law that allowed drug users to be prosecuted as murderers,” said Dr. Carl Hart, a Columbia University neuroscientist.