President Donald Trump says the United States has no alternative but to defeat an epidemic of opioid drug use, but announced no new policies to combat the health crisis that kills more than 100 Americans daily.
"It is a problem the likes of which we have not seen," Trump told reporters in the midst of a two-week getaway at his golf club in New Jersey.
"We will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win. We will win. We have no alternative."
Trump had earlier announced he would give a "major briefing" on opioid drug use but instead gave a few brief comments on the subject while also warning North Korea it would be met with "fire and fury" if it threatens the United States.
Trump aides were due to discuss the opioid topic later on Tuesday.
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A commission created by Trump to study opioid abuse urged him last week to declare a national emergency to address what it called a crisis involving the epidemic use of opioids, framing its death toll in the context of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The commission, headed by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, recommended a series of steps Trump could take on his own without Congress. It called for waiving a federal rule that restricts the number of people who can receive residential addiction treatment under the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 33,000 US deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available, and estimates show the death rate has continued rising. US Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has called the epidemic one of his agency's top priorities.
The commission cited government data showing that since 1999 opioid overdoses have quadrupled, adding that nearly two thirds of US drug overdoses were linked to opioids such as heroin and the powerful painkillers Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl.
