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By Al Edwards

During these stressful times of COVID-19, the United States has seen a rise in alcohol and substance abuse, which is exacerbating an already existing problem.

The New York Times calls it, ‘A national relapse trigger.’

According to the U.S. Addiction Center, alcohol and drug addiction cost the American economy over US$600 million every year; with drug overdose deaths tripling since 1990.

A startling discovery is more than 90 per cent of people who have an addiction started to drink alcohol or use drugs before they were 18 years old.

President Trump is looking to take a very focused approach to combat substance abuse and believes it should start with children and young people from an early age.

This is something visceral for him, having seen his older brother succumb to alcohol abuse which eventually killed him.

“Watch what happens if we do our jobs, how the number of drug users and the addicted will start to tumble downward over a period of years. It will be a beautiful thing to see.”

US President Donald Trump

About 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Since 1999, the sale of opioid painkillers has skyrocketed by 300 per cent, the US Addiction Center reports.

“One of the things our administration will be doing is a massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to want to take drugs in the first place. Why? Because they will see the devastation and ruination it causes to people and people’s lives. Watch what happens if we do our jobs, how the number of drug users and the addicted will start to tumble downward over a period of years. It will be a beautiful thing to see,” said President Trump.

He then made mention of his brother’s fate in heartfelt tones to hammer home his point, specifically about how substance abuse can decimate lives and destroy talent. “I learnt myself. I had a brother Fred, great guy. Best looking guy, best personality. Much better than mine but he had a problem, a problem with alcohol. And he would tell me – ‘Don’t drink!’ He was substantially older and I would listen to him and I would respect it. He would also add, ‘don’t smoke!’ He would say it over and over again. And to this day, I’ve never had a drink and I have no longing for it and I have no interest in it. To this day I have never had a cigarette – don’t worry, those are only two of my good things. I don’t want to tell you about the bad things. There are plenty of bad things too!”

Alcohol.Org draws attention to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that reveal that six Americans die every day from alcohol poisoning and about 76 per cent tend to be white men.

“Alcoholism is the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death in the United States, coming after tobacco and unhealthy diets and/ or lack of exercise. A person who succumbs to excessive alcohol uses loses 30 years of potential life and as many as 40 per cent of all hospital beds across the country are used to treat health conditions that develop from alcoholism. The epidemic is such that as many as 17% of men in the general population and 8% of women will meet the criteria for alcoholism in their lifetime,” argued the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Returning to the plight of his brother and the impact that unfortunate situation left on President Trump, he continued: “But he really helped me. I had someone who guided me and he had a very tough life because of alcohol. He was a strong guy but it was a tough thing he was going through. But I learned because of Fred and that’s what I think is so important. This was an idea that I had, that if we can teach young people, not to take drugs.”

“When I see friends of mine that are having difficulty with not having that drink at dinner, where it is literally impossible to stop, I say to myself, I can’t understand it. Why would that be difficult? But we understand why it is difficult,” Trump remarked.

Almost 40 million Americans smoke marijuana every year and about 500,000 over the age of 12 are regular heroin users.

About 25 per cent of people who try heroin will become addicted. There are roughly 5 million who are regular users of cocaine with those between the ages of 18 to 25 using it more than any other age group, notes the Addiction Center.

“The fact is if we can teach young people and people generally not to start, it’s really easy not to take them. I think that’s going to end up being our most important thing- really tough, really big advertising so we get to people before they start so they don’t have to go through the problems that people are going through,” President Trump argued.

Al’s Take President Donald Trump sounds a cautionary narrative drawn from his own familial experience while at the same time calling for the implementation of precautionary measures aimed at the young in order to prevent drug usage deviling the country. It is one of the best speeches of his administration; sincere, heartfelt, passionate. Here he addresses a big problem not only in America but throughout the world and what can be done to counter it.