BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — The impact of a proposed deep cut in a federal program that helps fight the opioid epidemic could be felt in states that have been hit the hardest by the crisis, West Virginia officials say.

President Donald Trump has included in his budget a plan to decrease funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy from $388 million a year to $24 million.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia is the state with the highest rate of opioid overdoses with 41.5 overdose deaths per 100,000 in 2015.

The state has been disproportionately targeted by drug manufacturers, which some site as the root of the crisis, according to Mercer County Commissioner Greg Puckett.

“We have seen this epidemic kill individuals, families and, in some cases, entire communities,” Puckett said.

Over the past few years, the state has set up programs with funding from the National Drug Control Policy to fight an ever-growing problem, said Puckett, who also serves on a national opioid task force with the National Association of Counties. He is also the director of Community Connections, an organization that works to fight abuse and help addicts, and a member of the Mercer County Board of Health.

By cutting federal funding for programs that work to help with addiction recovery and prevention, the problem will only grow, Puckett said.

“We are at a point when we should be looking at what successful programs are out there and how to invest more to curbing this crisis,” he said.

The office that Trump wants to defund has done “amazing work,” he said, and he has relayed that information to legislators. Any cuts in funding for programs on the front lines of combating drug abuse could hurt successful programs, he said.

One of those programs is Four Season Recovery Point in Bluefield, West Virginia, a residential treatment center for addicts. Terry Danielson, director of the center, said funding is crucial.

“Right now, we work with the state and they are very helpful,” he said. “We do some fundraising on our own to support the guys while they are here.”

Danielson said the center, which opened in 2015, has seen almost 30 men complete the program, which lasts at least a year. About 60 were on a waiting list to get in at the end of 2016. Danielson said they have seen high success rates from those who complete the program, adding that most are employed and many have families.

But that success could not come without a level of funding necessary to keep the program going.

“Any loss of funding would be detrimental to the programs we have,” Danielson said.

It also hurts in other ways, especially in counties that are already struggling with a declining economy and a growing drug problem, as well as hurting chances of new economic development, Puckett said.

“Higher drug use equals lower economic climate,” he said. “Low economic climate equals higher drug use. It’s a vicious cycle that is exacerbated by a lack of adequate funding to fix the problem. To say that (cutting funding from the federal program) is concerning is an understatement.”

McDowell County in the southeastern part of the state, which has the highest overdose rate per capita of any county in the country, is an example of that. McDowell County Sheriff Martin West recently said statistics don’t tell the entire story.

The human misery associated with drug abuse is “heart-wrenching” as the county was already trying to cope with a declining economy that leaves a very small tax base, he said.

“About nine out of 10 criminal cases here are drug-related,” he said. “That is costly. We have no tax base to pay for it.”

There are simply not enough resources to handle the problem, said Puckett, who is optimistic that legislators representing West Virginia in Congress are on board with seeking needed help, not defunding programs.

“We also know that prevention is the ultimate cost-saving measure, to educate and stop people from using drugs at all,” Puckett said. “The dollar match goes much higher in the prevention side than the recovery and treatment side.”

Boothe writes for the Bluefield, West Virginia Daily Telegraph.