A Proclamation on Overdose Awareness Week, 2024

On Overdose Awareness Week, we mourn those who have lost their lives to overdoses. We recognize the devastating toll the opioid epidemic has taken on individuals, families, and communities across America. We reflect on the progress we’ve made to date in reducing annual overdose deaths and protecting American lives—and how much more remains to be done. And we reaffirm our commitment to do more to disrupt the supply of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids and support those living with substance use disorder and their families across our communities.

My administration has made combating the opioid epidemic a top priority in my Unity Agenda for the Nation, calling on Republicans and Democrats to work together to stop fentanyl from entering our communities, hold accountable those who brought it here, and deliver life-saving medicine and care across America.

We are working to address this crisis with a comprehensive approach, including expanding access to evidence-based prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support services, as well as reducing the supply of illicit drugs. We have expanded access to life-saving treatments, such as medications to treat opioid addiction, and increased the number of health care providers who can prescribe these medications by 15 times. In February 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule to comprehensively update regulations for opioid treatment programs for the first time in 20 years – removing barriers to substance use disorder treatment and expanding access to care. My Administration has made historic investments in the State Opioid Response and Tribal Opioid Response programs to improve prevention; expand treatment; and provide free, life-saving medications across America. This program has already delivered nearly 10 million kits of opioid overdose medications, such as naloxone.

We also continue to fight the stigma surrounding substance use and accidental overdose so that people feel comfortable seeking help when they need it. Naloxone is now available without a prescription at local grocery stores and pharmacies. We also launched the White House Challenge to Save Lives from Overdose and several awareness campaigns to raise awareness and gain commitments from local governments and organizations across sectors to increase training and access to opioid overdose medications in schools, workplaces, public transportation systems, and other places where overdoses can occur in our communities. My FY 2025 budget calls for $22 billion to expand substance use treatment and help more Americans get into recovery and stay in recovery.

Under my administration, federal law enforcement officials are keeping more deadly drugs out of our communities than ever before. We are seizing deadly drugs at our borders, ensuring that illegal drugs never reach our neighborhoods. Officials have intercepted more illegal fentanyl at border crossings in the past two fiscal years than in the previous five fiscal years combined. The Justice Department has prosecuted leaders of the world’s largest and most powerful drug cartel, along with thousands of drug traffickers. The Treasury Department has sanctioned more than 300 individuals and organizations involved in the global illegal drug trade. I have also deployed advanced drug detection technology to our southwest border, and I continue to call on Congress to strengthen border security, increase penalties for those who bring deadly drugs into our communities, and close loopholes that drug traffickers exploit. And in July 2024, I issued a National Security Memorandum calling on all relevant federal departments and agencies to work together and do even more than they are already doing to stop the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into our country.

I am also committed to working with partners around the world to address this crisis. Last year, I negotiated the relaunch of counternarcotics cooperation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, which has led to greater law enforcement coordination, increased efforts to address the illicit financing of drug cartels, and better regulation of certain precursor chemicals. I have expanded counternarcotics cooperation with other key foreign governments; launched the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which brings together more than 150 countries to combat drug cartels; established new initiatives between the United States, Mexico, and Canada to address the supply of illicit drugs; and made combating fentanyl and other synthetic opioids a key G7 priority.

Now, for the first time in five years, the number of overdose deaths in the United States has begun to decline. But even one death is one too many, and far too many Americans continue to lose loved ones to fentanyl.

Today, I mourn with all the families and friends who have lost someone to overdose. This is a time to take action. And this is a time to stand together—for all those we have lost and all the lives we can still save.

THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby declare August 25 through August 31, 2024, to be Overdose Awareness Week. I call upon citizens, governmental agencies, community organizations, health care providers, and research institutions to raise awareness of substance use disorders so that our nation can combat stigma, promote treatment, celebrate recovery, and strengthen our collective efforts to prevent overdose deaths. August 31 also marks Overdose Awareness Day, when we honor and remember those who have lost their lives to the overdose epidemic.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the year two hundred and forty-nine.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.