Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Friday criticized a reported White House proposal to cut nearly the entire budget for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).
“I’ve known and worked with our drug czars for more than 20 years and this agency is critical to our efforts to combat drug abuse in general, and this opioid epidemic, in particular,” Portman said in a statement.
Portman noted the ONDCP supports the Drug Free Communities Act, legislation he authored in 1997.
It has “provided more than $1 billion to community drug coalitions around the country over the last 20 years, as well as the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program, which has helped states like Ohio that are ground zero for this problem,” he said.
{mosads}”We have a heroin and prescription drug crisis in this country,” he said, “and we should be supporting efforts to reverse this tide, not proposing drastic cuts to those who serve on the front lines of this epidemic.”
“It would be premature for us to comment — or anyone to report — on any aspect of this ever-changing, internal discussion before the publication of the document,” the White House said in a statement.
“The President and his cabinet are working collaboratively to create a leaner, more efficient government that does more with less of tax payers’ hard-earned dollars.”