CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, WASHINGTON D.C.- The White House, according to a press release to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper, held a press call with media across the country to announce efforts by the Obama administration to get Congress "to address the prescription opioid abuse and heroin use crisis by providing $1.1 billion in treatment funding that the president requested in his budget this year."

Michael Botticelli, director of national drug control policy for the White House, led the press call in conjunction with the release of a report and an affiliated 'Making Health Care Better' event that will "focus on the last eight years in prevention, treatment and recovery for substance use disorders."

Botticelli has 28 years in the field of recovery and has said that he believes that "we can turn the corner on this epidemic to move our country out of crisis into recovery."

Heroin and opiod abuse have increased in recent years.

In Cuyahoga County alone, which includes the city of Cleveland, it is a record-breaking dilemma.

"September, which tied August, was the deadliest month in Cuyahoga County history relative to heroin/fentanyl deaths, claiming at least 52 lives," said Christopher Harris, communications specialist for the county medical examiner's office.

The year- to- date period since September, the latest tabulation by the county medical examiner's office, "brought 385 deaths," Harris said.