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ONDCP Unveils Plan to Address Growing Methamphetamine Crisis
With overdose deaths involving methamphetamine and seizures of counterfeit pills on the rise, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) on Saturday, May 7, 2022, released the Biden administration’s plan to address methamphetamine supply, use, and consequences.
ONDCP Director Rahul Gupta, MD, MPH, MBA, FACP, presented the plan in San Diego, California.
“This bold, new action plan builds on the president’s national drug control strategy by expanding access to evidence-based prevention, treatment, and harm reduction strategies, as well as reducing the supply of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs by going after drug trafficking organizations,” Dr Gupta said in a news release. “This comprehensive and forward-looking action plan will help make our communities healthier and safer.”
In the 12 months ending in November 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a total of more than 102,000 overdose deaths, a record number. This includes a record more than 31,000 reported deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential, a class that includes methamphetamine.
The ONDCP methamphetamine plan unveiled on Saturday has 8 areas of focus:
- Treatment services. The plan focuses on removing barriers to treatment for methamphetamine use disorder in outpatient, specialty treatment, and incarcerated settings. ONDCP highlighted contingency management as one tactic that “has shown great promise in methamphetamine treatment.”
- Harm reduction. Acknowledging that methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths frequently involve the presence of other illicit drugs (including fentanyl), the plan calls for expanding the use of fentanyl test strips, syringe services, and naloxone.
- Prevention programs in schools. The plan calls for primary prevention programs to be implemented particularly in schools located in counties with high rates of persistent poverty, low education and employment, and high meth use.
- Training and education. Training for law enforcement and bystanders to identify and assist individuals experiencing symptoms of meth intoxication must be updated, as does training for healthcare providers to assist in responding to meth-associated cardiac events.
- Domestic law enforcement coordination. ONDCP has recommended the establishment of task forces focused on methamphetamine trafficking.
- Federal pill press equipment oversight. This includes importation, sales, and illicit use of such equipment to address the increasing trafficking of counterfeit pills.
- International partnerships to disrupt trafficking. ONDCP cited Mexico, China, and India as specific partners with whom the US can work to reduce methamphetamine being trafficked into the US and disrupt the flow of precursor chemicals.
- International law enforcement capacity building. Training for domestic and international law enforcement agencies involved in disrupting methamphetamine distribution should be expanded, ONDCP said in its report.
ONDCP has published the plan in full on the White House website. Read it here.
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