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Opioid Addiction

House passes package of bills to fight opioid addiction

Erin Kelly
USA TODAY
Overdose deaths from opioids, including heroin and prescription painkillers, have more than tripled since 2000.

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday passed a bipartisan package of bills to battle America's growing epidemic of painkiller abuse and heroin addiction, but the White House said the legislation won't accomplish much unless Congress provides more than $1 billion to fund the new programs.

House members are expected to overwhelmingly approve a total of 18 bills this week focused on opioid addiction, treatment and prevention.

On Wednesday, the House easily passed 10 of those bills, including legislation by Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., and Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., to create an inter-agency task force to update standards for doctors to manage their patients' pain and prescribe painkillers. Lawmakers also approved a bill requiring states that receive federal grants for child protective services to have laws or programs in place to ensure that infants born to opioid-addicted mothers will be cared for safely when they leave the hospital.

More bills will be taken up Thursday.

"This historic package of anti-drug bills will deliver critical funds to address the abuse of heroin and opiates, support our loved ones on their path towards recovery, and slow the flow of drugs into our country," said Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.

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Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., praised the bipartisan action but said it must be fully funded to do any good. Democrats offered an amendment Wednesday to provide $600 million in emergency funding, but it was blocked by Republicans who said the money will come later when Congress passes its 2017 spending bills for federal agencies.

"We need to not only pass these bills, but we need to commit in a bipartisan way that we’re going to provide the necessary funding, and I hope we can do that," McGovern said. "If we don’t do that, all the speeches that we give this week will amount to empty rhetoric."

The White House echoed that sentiment in a statement Tuesday night that noted that four in five new heroin users started out by abusing prescription pain medicine. President Obama has requested $1.1 billion to fight opioid addiction.

Each day, 44 people die in the United States from an overdose of prescription painkillers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug overdose is now the the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, surpassing car crashes, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

"These trends will not change by simply authorizing new grant programs, studies and reports," the White House said. "Congressional action is needed to fund the tools communities need to confront this epidemic and accelerate important policies like training health care providers on appropriate opioid prescribing, an essential component of this effort."

The House has devoted the majority of this week to passing the opioid bills. Their bills must be reconciled with legislation already approved by the Senate.

In March, the Senate voted 94-1 to pass the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. The bill authorizes the attorney general to provide grants to states, local governments and non-profit groups for programs to strengthen prescription drug monitoring, improve treatment for addicts, and expand prevention, education and law enforcement initiatives.

The legislation authorizes $725 million for federal grants but does not allocate any actual funds, which would have to be approved as part of legislation to fund federal agencies for the 2017 fiscal year. Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to add $600 million in emergency money to the bill.

Senate passes bipartisan bill to combat painkiller abuse, heroin addiction

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