Pennsylvania opioid disaster declaration ends, Governor says fight not over

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has said that the state’s opioid disaster declaration is over as of August 25, 2021, after the
Republican-controlled General Assembly declined to extend it despite continued
cases of overdose during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Wolf had first declared an opioid disaster in Pennsylvania back
in January 2018 to help the commonwealth fight the deadly opioid and heroin
epidemic. He has since renewed the declaration 15 times, most recently in early
August this year.

“When I first signed Pennsylvania’s opioid disaster
declaration in 2018, it was an important tool in our fight to save lives. The
disaster declaration allowed us to work together more effectively to reduce
overdose deaths and help Pennsylvanians obtain treatment and pursue recovery,”
Wolf said, according to NorthcentralPA.

“We made a lot of progress before the COVID-19 pandemic
struck, both in putting improved systems in place to help Pennsylvanians and in
reducing overdose deaths in the commonwealth by nearly 20% from 2017 to
2020,” Wolf added.

In September 2020, the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol
Program had announced the launch of Life Unites Us, an anti-stigma campaign,
utilizing social media platforms to spread real-life stories of individuals and
their family members battling substance use disorder as a part of the opioid
emergency. It was designed to help the youth overcome the problem. The campaign
had live and recorded webinars detailing tools and information necessary to
effectively reduce stigma to more than 350 community-based organizations
focused on substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery
throughout Pennsylvania, and a web-based interactive data dashboard detailing
the progress of the campaign.

“The General Assembly has determined that a disaster
declaration is no longer our most effective tool against the opioid epidemic
and has declined to extend it. But our fight is not over. We have an obligation
to support individuals desperately in need of substance use disorder services
and supports. With or without a disaster declaration, this will remain a top
priority of my administration,” comments from the governor said.