With 175 Americans dying each day from drug overdoses, the opioid crisis is akin to “a plane crashing every day,” Mayor Catherine Pugh said Friday as she and other Baltimore officials urged Congress to approve comprehensive legislation to combat the epidemic.
“We are in desperate need at this particular point in time,” Pugh said at a roundtable discussion that included Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, community leaders and addiction experts at the city offices of Health Care for the Homeless.
Cummings and Warren, both Democrats, sought to use the forum — televised nationally by C-SPAN — to promote legislation that would provide $100 billion over 10 years for services to combat substance use disorders. The legislation is modeled after the Ryan White Act of 1990, which provided billions of federal dollars to combat the AIDS crisis.
“This is what we on the front lines have been asking for,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, who moderated the panel.
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