Office of the City Clerk - Record #: R2017-733

• Record #: R2017-733
• Type: Resolution
• Status: Adopted
• Intro date: 9/6/2017
• Current Controlling Legislative Body: Committee on Finance
• Final action: 10/11/2017
• Title: Declaration of opioid crisis as public health emergency and call for coordinated response by federal, state and local agencies and law enforcement communities to increase access to substance abuse prevention and treatment programs
• Sponsors: Burke, Edward M., Scott, Jr. Michael
• Topic: COMMITTEE/PUBLIC HEARINGS - Joint Committee - Finance and Public Safety

Date	Journal Page Number	Action By	Action	Result
10/11/2017	56398	City Council	Adopted	Pass
10/6/2017		Committee on Finance	Recommended to Pass	Pass
9/6/2017	55785	City Council	Referred

RESOLUTION


WHEREAS, the City of Chicago is a home rule unit of government pursuant to the 1970 Illinois Constitution, Article VII, Section 6(a); and

WHEREAS, pursuant to its home rule power, the City of Chicago may exercise any power and perform any function relating to its government and affairs including promoting the quality of life and the welfare of its citizens; and

WHEREAS, drug addiction is a widespread and growing problem, with an estimated 2.6 million opioid addicts in the United States; and

WHEREAS, since 1999, the number of both opioid prescriptions and prescription opioid overdoses have quadrupled in the United States; and

WHEREAS, in 2016, 1.4 million privately insured patients were diagnosed with opioid dependency, compared to only 241,000 such patients in 2012; and

WHEREAS, with approximately 142 Americans dying every day as a result of opioids, the nation is enduring a death toll equal to the September 11th attacks every three weeks; and

WHEREAS, in 2015, there were more than 33,000 opioid-related deaths across the United States; and

WHEREAS, deaths linked to Fentanyl, a powerful new opioid that is forty times more potent than heroin, tripled to more than 9,000 between 2013 and 2015 in the United States; and

WHEREAS, federal officials estimate that opioid abuse drains nearly $80 billion annually from the American economy as a result of expenses tied to health care, criminal justice, and lost productivity; and

WHEREAS, public health experts project that opioids could kill roughly 250 Americans a day, or more than 650,000 Americans total, over the next decade as the crisis of addiction and overdose accelerates; and

WHEREAS, if public health experts' projections are correct, opioids could kill nearly as many Americans in a decade as HIV/AIDS has killed since the early 1980s; and

WHEREAS, on July 31, 2017, the Trump Administration's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis released its interim report urging the President...