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...
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