Close
Dr. Rahul Gupta speaks during a news conference in 2017. President Joe Biden nominated Gupta to lead the federal Office of Drug Control Policy. Gupta served as West Virginia s drug czar from 2015 to 2018 and as the executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department for five years before that.
KENNY KEMP | Gazette-Mail file photo
By Lacie Pierson
Staff writer Jul 13, 2021
Biden’s Pick for Drug Czar Draws Mixed Reviews
Dr. Rahul Gupta led West Virginia’s response to the opioid crisis from 2015 to 2018. Credit.Christian Tyler Randolph/Charleston Gazette-Mail, via Associated Press
July 13, 2021
WASHINGTON President Biden intends to nominate Dr. Rahul Gupta, who led West Virginia’s response to a devastating opioid crisis, to run the Office of National Drug Control Policy a choice that immediately drew mixed reviews from advocates for people with substance abuse problems.
If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Gupta would become the first medical doctor to serve as the nation’s drug czar since the role was created in 1988. He would take office at a critical juncture in twin public health crises: the coronavirus pandemic and the nation’s long-running addiction epidemic, which has taken a sharp turn for the worse over the past year with a surge in drug overdose deaths.
âHave you no shame?â Biden frames voting rights as a moral reckoning.
-0:00
âThe 21st-Century Jim Crow Assault Is Real,â Biden Says
President Biden spoke out forcefully against Republican efforts to curtail voting rights across the country and vowed that his administration would seek to limit their impact.
Some things in America should be simple and straightforward. Perhaps the most important of those things, the most fundamental of those things, is the right to vote. The right to vote freely. The democratic threshold is liberty. With it, anythingâs possible without it, nothing, nothing. And for our democracy in the work and to deliver our work and our people, itâs up to all of us to protect that right. This year alone, 17 states have enacted, not just proposed but enacted, 28 new laws to make it harder for Americans to vote, not to mention â and catch this â nearly 400 additional bills Republican members of the state legislatures are tryin
Governor continues to warn about the Delta variant timeswv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timeswv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.