As U.S. President Barack Obama heads into his final year in office, his administration is deploying a collaborative effort between U.S. agencies to tackle suicide, stress, mental health and drug use in rural America, according to reports.
Headed by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the initiative will focus in particular on combating the heroin epidemic facing the nation’s poorer, rural areas, The Washington Post reported.
With an additional $400 million allocated in the recent federal budget deal to tackle heroin use, the initiative is aimed at short-term steps the administration can take now to develop a comprehensive strategy, according to the Post’s Juliet Eilperin.
The budget deal, in addition to increased funds, also opens the door to using such federal monies for controversial needle exchange programs, Eilperin wrote.
The new effort is aimed at centralizing federal action on drug abuse, the Post added.
According to CNN: “The White House hopes Vilsack will use information about rural problems to develop policy solutions combating heroin use as well as ‘increasing suicide rates, declining physical and mental health, and heightened financial stress,’ a White House official said.”
Vilsack, who has led the USDA since 2009 and whose own adoptive mother faced addictions, according to the Post, told the newspaper that he – like Obama – is optimistic that addressing drug abuse is one area that both Democrats and Republicans can agree to support.
While it was not immediately clear what decisions federal officials will make, it is the latest public push to address the rise of drug abuse, particularly in less-populated U.S. areas.
The White House initiative follows an earlier forum held in West Virginia in October in which Obama addressed drug overdoses.
