Health security

Ex-DEA agent predicts U.S. will have to deal with opioid crisis for the long term

Jack Riley, a former special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, emphasized the urgency surrounding combating the opioid crisis on Monday, telling Hill.TV's "Rising" that it's something the U.S. will have to deal with in the long term. 

"We've never faced anything like this," Riley, author of "Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America's Opioid Crisis," told hosts Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball. "Over 120 people a day are dying in this country because of drug abuse, and much of that is opioid-related." 

"Everybody is a part of this solution," he continued. "Law enforcement, the treatment, educators, policymakers, preachers, coaches and athletics, and certainly parents around their dinner table." 

"This is something we're going to have to deal with, I think, for quite a while," he said. "A lot of people use the term 'war on drugs.' It really drives me crazy because it denotes a beginning and an end, and I think as long as we're in existence, we're going to be struggling with addiction, with the violence, and the people that profit from it, and I think it's up to us to choose how we hit it."