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If President Trump fulfills his repeated promise to declare a national emergency (he made a similar pledge in August), Lemaitre believes he will most likely do so through the Public Health Service Act.

The president can ask the acting-Secretary of Health and Human Services (Tom Price resigned on Sept. 29) to declare a public health emergency, allowing the agency to waive restrictions and deploy medical personnel to rural areas where medical options are limited.

This option could be effective, Haffajee, the University of Michigan assistant professor said, but limited in terms of dollars available.

The Public Health Emergency Fund at HHS currently stands at $57,000, according to an agency spokesperson.

Congress created the fund in 1983 and designed it to be replenished up to $30 million on an annual basis. The last time congress reauthorized the fund was in 1990 when the balance was raised to $45 million, but refunding has since ceased.

President Trump's latest budget proposal includes such an emergency fund, but does not provide a dollar amount. If the budget passes in its current form, HHS would lose more than $4 billion in funding.

Those inside and outside of HHS understand that any federal emergency declaration through the Public Health Service Act would require additional capital from congress for HHS's emergency fund. Such a declaration however could provide HHS the freedom to tear down red tape and facilitate quick and effective action, according to experts.

For example, the HHS chief could allow pharmacies to distribute naloxone, the opioid overdose antidote, to those without a prescription, called a \"standing order.\"

\"Family, friends can get that naloxone if they know they're going to be around somebody who is using, and have a higher likelihood of being able to administer that,\" Haffajee said.

One thing some states have done, that the federal government could facilitate, according to Haffajee, is to equip first responders and even librarians or other personnel in public places with the antidote where overdoses occur with some frequency.

\"The whole idea is getting more naloxone into more people's hands and getting them to feel comfortable using it,\" Haffajee told ABC News.

Under Medicaid, the federal government will not reimburse opioid abuse treatments at larger medical facilities dedicated to such mental diseases, another restriction HHS could lift under the Public Health Service Act.

\"This is the single fastest way to increase treatment availability across the nation,\" the White House commission wrote in their report.

The commission also recommended by declaring a national emergency, \"you can empower the HHS Secretary to negotiate reduced pricing\" for naloxone, something currently restricted by federal law.

The experts agree that these steps could be, and in some cases already have been, effective, but the apparent lack of funds through a Public Health Service Act emergency declaration could become problematic.

\"States have done a lot,\" Haffajee said. \"But because we need so much more for the population, states are starting to run out of funds.\"

Richard Frank, a Harvard University health economics professor told McClatchy News that the price of necessary services to combat the growing opioid problem is roughly $190 billion over 10 years.

Officials ABC News spoke to on many sides of the debate agree that federal government involvement is critical to tackling the epidemic and an emergency declaration would bring an important amount of attention to what is likely the most severe drug crisis in the country's history. The question, they say, remains: what course of federal action provides the best resources.

Grant Smith, deputy director of National Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, says some positive results could come out of an emergency declaration, but added that he thinks the Trump administration's stance on drug policy is worrisome to an extent and handing the opioid fight to the current White House could be an extension of the \"war on drugs.\"

In a speech Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered to the National Alliance For Drug Endangered Children in August he said \"robust enforcement of our laws helps keep drugs out of our country, decreases their availability, drives up their price, and reduces their purity.\"

President Trump later echoed the sentiment from Bedminster, N.J.

\"Strong law enforcement is absolutely vital to having a drug-free society,\" Trump said. \"I'm confident that by working with our health care and law enforcement experts we will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win.\"

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