President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency on Thursday, telling an audience in the East Room of the White House that "we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic."
"This epidemic is a national health emergency," he said. "Nobody has seen anything like what is going on now."
He added: "As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue. It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction. Never been this way. We can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. We can do it."
"An astonishing 90% of the heroin in America comes from south of the border -- where we will be building a wall -- which will greatly help in this problem," he said.
