Trump declared health emergency over drug addiction while president

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During his first year as president in 2017, Trump declared a health emergency over the opioid crisis and launched a new effort to tackle drug abuse in the United States.

"Fentanyl and other ultra-deadly poisons are pouring into our country unchecked — stealing more than 100,000 American lives every single year," Trump said in a campaign video as he seeks another term in office.

"They are killing our people, they are poisoning our beautiful children," the former president continued, calling out the crisis at the southern border as fueling the opioid crisis in America.

The former president told Fox News in June that "the only way you're going to stop it" - referring to the drug crisis - would be to introduce the death penalty for drug dealers.

"For three decades before my election, drug overdose deaths increased every single year. Under my leadership, we took the drug and fentanyl crisis head on, and we achieved the first reduction in overdose deaths in more than 30 years," Trump said in a video from June obtained by Fox News Digital.