President Trump delivered a fiery speech yesterday calling for the execution of some drug traffickers. But to actually start doing that, he’d either need Congress to change the law or would have to reinterpret it on his own. Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen said she’s worried about Trump’s focus on punishment.

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President Donald Trump on Monday rolled out his three-part plan to tackle the opioid epidemic -- including some programs long championed by public health advocates -- but it's the proposal to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers that has raised the most eyebrows.

Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, said "The war on drugs has not worked," she said. "The last thing we need is to further criminalize the disease of addiction. We need for everyone to understand addiction is a disease, that treatment exists and recovery is possible."

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President Donald Trump on Monday said he believes the impact of the opioid abuse epidemic can be curbed by cutting opioid prescriptions by a third over the next three years. He also called for the death penalty for large-scale drug traffickers.

"The War on Drugs approach has not worked and has disproportionately incarcerated minorities and the poor," Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore city health commissioner, said in a written statement.

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The nation’s opioid epidemic has been called today’s version of the 1980s AIDS crisis. 

Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician by training and the health commissioner for hard-hit Baltimore, said Capitol Hill has to help communities at risk of becoming overwhelmed. “We haven’t seen the peak of the epidemic. We are seeing the numbers climb year after year,” she said.

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Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen commended President Trump for devoting more attention to the country's opioid epidemic, but called much of his new plan "deeply troubling.

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 Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church invited Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner to educate and bring awareness to the current opioid crisis.

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Deborah Woolford walked to the front of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore on Sunday and rolled up her sleeve to learn firsthand how to treat someone overdosing on opioids.

The 61-year-old Old Goucher woman and another volunteer obliged Dr. Leana S. Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner, as she demonstrated to the congregation the two ways of administering naloxone, the emergency, overdose-reversing drug known as Narcan.

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Officials in Philadelphia want residents to carry and use an opioid overdose antidote as part of the city's effort to combat skyrocketing overdoses. Baltimore's health commissioner has waived training requirements for those seeking to acquire the overdose-reversing drug and said any resident could go into a pharmacy and get the medication.

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A new study has ignited controversy in the world of drug abuse prevention, applying the economic theory of "moral hazard" to the opioid crisis. "[Doleac and Mukherjee's] study assumes the passage of these laws lead immediately to everyone having easy access to naloxone when they need it, when this is not the case," said Leana Wen, Baltimore's health commissioner.

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