Bipartisan Opioid Abuse Bill Heads to the President’s Desk
Will this bill OVERTURN the 1917 court ruling that opiate addiction is a CRIME and not a DISEASE… so that prescribers can now legally prescribe opiates for both those suffering from the mental health disease of addictive personality disorder and those with chronic pain without concerns of the DEA’s interference with the practice of medicine ? Could present a real dilemma for the DEA.
Last year, overdoses from heroin, prescription drugs and opioids surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of injury-related deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a rare bipartisan effort, legislation to help reverse this statistic is headed toward the president’s desk, and he is expected to sign the bill.
In a 92-2 vote, the Senate passed a compromise bill, which was already approved by the House, to tackle what is being called the nation’s epidemic of opioid abuse. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) introduced the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA; S. 524, H.R. 953), and there has been broad support for the measure.
“Today’s strong bipartisan vote is a victory for American families who are struggling with the disease of addiction,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), one of the co-authors of the Senate bill. “This is a historic moment, the first time in decades that Congress has passed comprehensive addiction legislation, and the first time Congress has ever supported long-term addiction recovery. This is also the first time that we’ve treated addiction like the disease that it is, which will help put an end to the stigma that has surrounded addiction for too long.” In Rhode Island in 2015, 258 people lost their lives to overdoses—more than the number of those killed in homicides, suicides and car accidents combined. That same year, 439 people in New Hampshire were lost to a drug overdose, while the most recent figures for Ohio and Minnesota stand at 2,744 and 571, respectively.
CARA will strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs to help trace drug diversion and help people gain access to services for addition.
CARA also will expand:
• prevention and education efforts to prevent the abuse of methamphetamines, opioids and heroin to promote treatment and recovery;
• the availability of the overdose reversal agent, naloxone, to law enforcement agencies and first responders;
• resources to identify and treat incarcerated individuals with addiction disorders; and
• disposal sites for unwanted prescriptions.
In addition, CARA proposes to launch:
• an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program that uses best practices; and
• a medication-assisted treatment and intervention demonstration project.
Although there is wide support for the measure, there is not wide agreement about how to pay the estimated $900 million that will be used to fight the epidemic by enhancing prevention, treatment and policing.
“The bill now going to the President’s desk is no more than a half measure,” said Senate Committee on Finance Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in a statement. “If Congress takes a political victory lap without adequate funding, this attempt to address the opioid epidemic will have been an empty promise. Until the job is finished and important addiction treatment and prevention programs are in effect, the opioid crisis will continue to rage.”
Deaths from opioid abuse have reached their highest levels since 2014, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Heroin overdoses have more than tripled in the last five years.
Filed under: General Problems
Why is it that the bill doesn’t mention patients who need opiates, short term or long term? Great to take the stigma away from addiction, but in reading this, it sure seems to imply that only addicts take opiates, and the answer is – lets get rid of them, all of them. Everyday there are stories of people being tortured because their meds are no longer being prescribed, or their dose was lowered to an ineffective dose. They include cancer patients; there are people having big, major, painful surgeries and being told to take Tylenol for pain. For many surgeries, if the patient doesn’t get pain relief, then the surgery was a waste! The knee replacement patient won’t be able to do the physical therapy they need to heal properly; the open heart surgical patient won’t be able to walk and get a little exercise to help them heal to have a healthy cardiovascular system. There are already more reported infections, which might have been prevented if surgical patients were able to move around. Chronic pain patients with illnesses that have been found – those that work will become unable to work, taxpayers will foot the bill for disability. Their families and children will not get the same care. There are people who live with daily pain that renders them unable to care for themselves- bathing, dressing, toileting all require help for many. Yet medication can REDUCE their pain, and they’re able to maintain their dignity and be less of a burden. These patients are treated like criminals, the hoops they must jump through to get those meds are unfathomable and for some too expensive to be in reach, and yet the only concern is for addicts. Seems like our country is fixated on torture, power and down right meanness!
Abolish the CSA of 1970, decriminalize the whole laundry list of “controlled substances” on a Federal level and engage in a systematic defunding of the DEA. Reduce it’s staffing by 20% each year over the next five years. Redefine it’s role as simply diversion detectives with minimal arrest powers and no power to execute civil asset procedures. Let the information be used by the State and local LEOs to deal with criminal diversion based on a state by state set of laws regarding “controlled substances”. After five years, when the local LEOs have the methodology down, abolish the DEA. There’s the funding and then some for may years to come. This is one substantial step towards a harm reduction model.