Obama: Everyone has to help fight drug abuse

President Obama said Wednesday that government and the public must work together to confront an epidemic of drug abuse that is claiming more and more lives.

Heroin and prescription drugs are primary culprits in a crisis that has hurt and killed Americans from all walks of life, Obama said during an anti-drug event in Charleston, W. Va.

"It could happen to any of us," the president said.

Obama outlined a plan that includes better training for doctors and other health care professionals to handle drug abusers and easier access for treatment. The administration is also launching a media advertising campaign designed to make people aware of the dangers of heroin and abuse of prescription drugs.

The criminal justice system should emphasize treatment of drug defendants, rather that incarceration, Obama said. saying jail and prison should be reserved for violent offenders.

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Meeting with local community leaders, health care professionals and law enforcement officers, Obama said any anti-drug campaign should involve government at the federal, state, and local levels as well as private individuals.

"With no other disease do we expect people to wait until they're a danger to themselves or others to self-diagnose and seek treatment," Obama said.

The  president said that "120 Americans die every day from drug overdoses" and "most involving legal prescription drugs — that's more than from car crashes."

Saying sales of painkillers have "skyrocketed" in recent years, Obama claimed that in 2012 enough prescriptions were written to "give every American adult a bottle of pills." He also said that four in five heroin abusers start with prescription drugs, and "heroin-related deaths nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013."

Prescription drugs "become a gateway to heroin," Obama told the crowd in West Virginia.

Why did Obama pitch the plan in West Virginia? It has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the U.S., more than twice the national average.

Congressional Republicans have endorsed the administration's anti-drug abuse efforts.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose home state of Kentucky has faced the same kinds of problems, said drug abuse isn't a partisan issue.

"Finding solutions to this epidemic will require all of us — Republicans and Democrats alike — working together at the federal, state and local levels," McConnell said.

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