Summary
Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., despite his history of heroin addiction, supports ending a $56 million federal Narcan distribution program that helped drive a nearly 24% drop in U.S. overdose deaths in 2024.
The program, administered by SAMHSA, trained over 66,000 people and distributed 282,500 kits.
Critics warn that cutting Narcan funding could reverse life-saving progress, especially as fentanyl-related overdoses persist.
Kennedy argues the crisis requires deeper societal change beyond “nuts and bolts” solutions, while public health advocates condemn the move as dangerously premature.
56 million to drop the OD death rate by nearly a quarter? This is exactly the sort of thing I want to see my taxes doing, directly improving people’s lives, and the cost is a drop in the bucket for federal budgets.
And his reasoning is bullshit, you can work to address the deeper cause while mitigating the symptoms, it isn’t an either/or
Doubly infuriating is that they have NO intention of “addressing the deeper cause”. This asshole drug addict is just “personal responsibility”-ing drug addiction.
“Why don’t you just have your family send you to the best treatment centers available like I did?!”