Federal funding boost for opioid crisis not nearly enough, critics say

CHERRY HILL, N.J. — The federal government will spend a record $4.6 billion this year to fight the nation’s deepening opioid crisis, which killed 42,000 Americans in 2016.

But some advocates say the funding included in the spending plan the president signed Friday is not nearly enough to establish the kind of treatment system needed to reverse the crisis. A White House report last fall put the cost to the country of the overdose epidemic at more than $500 billion a year.

Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat who served on President Trump’s opioid commission last year, said there are clear solutions but that Congress needs to devote more money to them.