Richard J. Baum made 12 Hard Lessons and 32 policy recommendations from his 2026 book, Inside America’s Opioid Crisis, publicly available to advance a stronger response to opioid addiction and emerging synthetic drug threats.
NEW YORK — Bereaved families, advocates, law enforcement officials, treatment and recovery leaders, and community organizations gathered on Saturday, July 11, for a Walk for Lives across the Brooklyn Bridge, followed by a rally in City Hall Park.
Richard J. Baum, former Acting Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and an advisory board member of United Against Fentanyl, was among the featured speakers at the event, organized by United Against Fentanyl in partnership with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The New York gathering was part of a nationwide series of more than 100 Walk for Lives events intended to remember people lost to fentanyl, educate communities and call for stronger action against the opioid and synthetic drug crisis.
“Today is about remembrance. It is about awareness. But it is also about action,” Baum told participants.
Baum began his remarks by recognizing families who have transformed personal loss into public advocacy.
“Your willingness to share your stories, honor your loved ones, educate the rest of us, and turn grief into action is extraordinary,” he said. “You have helped teach the country painful but necessary lessons about addiction, overdose, fentanyl, and the urgent need to do more.”
Baum, who spent 28 years at the Office of National Drug Control Policy across six presidential administrations, placed the fentanyl crisis within the longer history of drug epidemics in the United States.
He noted that the country experienced its first major opioid crisis approximately 150 years ago, after morphine was widely used as a painkiller during and after the Civil War. Subsequent generations confronted epidemics involving heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and prescription opioids, including the crisis that accelerated following the introduction of OxyContin in 1996.
“But we have never faced anything quite like fentanyl,” Baum said.
Although fentanyl overdose deaths began rising rapidly more than a decade ago, Baum said the extent to which fentanyl has transformed the illicit drug market is still not fully understood.
“Today, illicit pills and powders contain a rapidly changing mix of synthetic opioids, stimulants, sedatives, and other substances,” he said. “People often do not know what they are taking. Families do not know what danger their loved ones may be facing. First responders, public health officials, and law enforcement are all trying to keep up with a drug supply that is constantly changing.”
Baum acknowledged the recent decline in overdose deaths but warned that the progress remains fragile and that the national response has not yet reached the scale required by the threat.
He called for a sustained, bipartisan strategy addressing both the demand for illicit drugs within the United States and the international production and trafficking of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals.
On the domestic side, Baum said treatment must become easier to access than illicit drugs. He called for more affordable and rapid pathways into treatment, expanded treatment capacity, direct outreach to people at risk, and greater access to recovery coaches and peer-support specialists.
“We should not accept a system in which far too many people who need help cannot get it, do not know where to turn, or face delays and obstacles at the very moment they are ready to accept care,” he said. “People with addiction should not have to navigate a maze to find help.”
Baum also emphasized the need for closer coordination among health care providers, public health agencies, law enforcement and the justice system. Such partnerships, he said, can connect more people to treatment, recovery support and other services while allowing law enforcement agencies to focus resources on the individuals and organizations causing the greatest harm.
During his federal career, Baum worked with DEA personnel serving in the United States and in countries including Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and China.
“Their work is difficult, dangerous, and absolutely essential,” he said. “But they cannot do it alone.”
Baum also called for modernizing the international drug-control system, which he said was designed for an earlier era and cannot respond quickly enough to emerging synthetic drugs and chemical precursors.
“The most recent international drug treaty was written 40 years ago,” he said. “Today, new synthetic drugs and chemical precursors can appear quickly, move across borders, and be adapted by traffickers faster than governments can respond.”
Baum urged the United Nations and its member states to develop faster procedures for controlling dangerous synthetic drugs, fentanyl precursor chemicals and dual-use chemicals that can be diverted to manufacture methamphetamine and other illicit substances.
A more responsive international system, he said, would strengthen the work already underway by the DEA and other agencies to disrupt trafficking organizations and reduce the flow of dangerous drugs into American communities.
In conjunction with the Walk for Lives event, Baum made the complete 12 Hard Lessons and 32 Recommendations from his 2026 book, Inside America’s Opioid Crisis: 12 Hard Lessons for Today’s Drug War, freely available on his website for the first time.
Previously available only to readers of the book, the recommendations are intended to encourage broader public discussion about the steps needed to modernize the country’s response to addiction, overdose, drug trafficking and emerging synthetic drug threats.
The recommendations are organized into five policy pillars addressing governance and accountability; treatment and recovery; criminal justice and public safety; enforcement and international strategy; and prevention and future readiness.
Among the proposals are expanded treatment and recovery capacity, greater use of recovery coaches and peer-support specialists, improved coordination between public health and public safety agencies, more focused enforcement against high-impact trafficking organizations, stronger international controls on synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals, and sustained investments in prevention and youth opportunity.
Baum highlighted three principal messages from the Walk for Lives events: Overdose deaths are declining, but the drug supply remains dangerous and continues to evolve; families affected by addiction and fatal overdose must remain at the center of the national policy discussion; and the country must substantially expand prevention, treatment, recovery support and focused law enforcement efforts while creating easier, low-barrier pathways into care.
“The families here today know better than anyone what is at stake,” Baum said. “Every life lost to fentanyl is a person with a name, a story, a family, and a future that should not have been taken away.”
United Against Fentanyl is planning a national Walk for Lives event in Washington, D.C., on September 26, followed by a policy summit at Georgetown University’s Capitol Campus.
Baum served as Acting Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy from 2017 to 2018. He retired from federal service in late 2025 and is now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, an advisory board member of United Against Fentanyl and the author of Inside America’s Opioid Crisis: 12 Hard Lessons for Today’s Drug War, published by Bloomsbury in February 2026.
Additional Information
Richard J. Baum
https://richardjbaum.com/
12 Hard Lessons and 32 Recommendations
https://richardjbaum.com/hard-lessons-recommendations
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardjbaum
Educational Video Series
http://www.youtube.com/@AmericasOpioidCrisisVideos
Media Contact
media@richardjbaum.com