Gov. Tom Wolf extended the state’s disaster declaration for the opioid crisis for the 15th — and final — time this week.

His capacity to do so again is being blocked by state Republican legislative leaders, who have said they would not agree to extend the disaster declaration any further. It will expire Aug. 26.

Their ability to do so stems from voters in May approving a change to the state constitution that placed limits on the governor’s emergency powers.

Republican leadership in the state Senate and House said that while they would not allow for the disaster declaration to be extended any further, they vowed to continue prioritizing the fight against the opioid epidemic.

Some may approve of the legislature’s move, while others might disagree with it. Regardless, there’s plenty of evidence that a continued focus needs to remain on battling drug abuse in Pennsylvania.

A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention surfaced last month that noted overdose deaths increased by 16% in the state in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

While the state remained below the national average, and the number of deaths was still lower than the peak years of the opioid epidemic — deaths were particularly high between 2014 and 2017 — it’s not great news to see overdose deaths on the rise.

This increase was attributed to everything from lockdowns and social distancing that isolated those already struggling with addiction to treatment becoming harder to obtain during the pandemic.

But just as it appeared recently that we were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with COVID-19, the delta variant of the virus is rampaging through communities across the nation. While there’s less social distancing now than there was in 2020, the ongoing issues created by the pandemic aren’t going away yet.

It would be safe to assume that drug abuse and overdose deaths won’t just fade away either.

One argument against not renewing the opioid disaster declaration has been that it could affect inter-agency information sharing through the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

If the legislature does not plan on renewing the disaster declaration, let’s hope they intend to allocate the necessary resources to battle this scourge that will likely stick around long after COVID-19 is a distant memory. State trends of the past year-and-a-half are proof that this is an urgent matter.

— NCD