Pubdate: Mon, 01 Feb 2016
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2016 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Karoun Demirjian

CONGRESS JUMPING ON OPIOID-ABUSE CRISIS

Congress is homing in on the issue of opioid abuse, which is no 
accident in a presidential year, when the issue is especially acute 
in the first-in-the-nation contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In fact, it's one of the only possible pieces of legislation that 
both parties may be able to agree on in what is universally expected 
to be an unproductive Congress. Ironically, the rosier outlook for 
opioid abuse legislation is being driven by Republican and Democratic 
presidential contenders-who are sharing their personal stories about 
relatives with drug problems with concerned voters on the campaign trail.

On the campaign trail, both Republicans and Democrats are addressing 
the epidemic by recounting their personal experience with relatives 
and others who have suffered from drug addiction.

With the Granite State presidential primary on Feb. 9, New Hampshire 
Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R), who is up for reelection, and Jeanne Shaheen 
(D) are among those leading the effort for more prevention, treatment 
and education about opioid abuse and to provide law enforcement 
officials the drugs that can keep an overdose from turning deadly.

Leaders in both parties and both chambers have endorsed the effort - 
a rare spot of bipartisan agreement for parties bitterly divided on 
most other topics. Committees have only just started holding hearings 
on the matter, but the acute bipartisan interest suggests that 
lawmakers may work to pass a bill before the chambers disband this summer.

The worsening heroin epidemic is demanding the attention of 
presidential candidates as they face heated contests in the 
early-voting states, which are reeling from the deepening crisis. 
Over the past decade, Iowa has experienced more than a threefold 
increase in people seeking treatment for heroin and opioid 
addictions, and a nearly tenfold increase in deaths from heroin 
overdoses. In New Hampshire, more than 400 people died of heroin and 
opioid overdoses in 2015- double the death toll two years ago.

In Washington, the issue has leapt to the front burner.

The rapidly expanding discussion, just in the scope of one Judiciary 
Committee hearing last week, illustrated the danger of an 
opioid-addiction bill running into familiar partisan traps-the same 
problem for other bills on the short list for 2016 action. 
Congressional enthusiasm for passing criminal justice reform- another 
area in which there is common ground between the parties-began to 
wane last month as discord over questions of criminal intent deepened.

But on opioid abuse, even the lawmakers most interested in attaching 
their pet projects to the bill seem aware of the need to keep their 
desires in check, for the good of getting something done.

"We've seen that when we try to do big comprehensive bills sometimes 
they get weighed down and nothing happens," Senate Majority Whip John 
Cornyn (R-Tex.) said Wednesday, reflecting on the feasibility of his 
own wish list for opioid reform. "So I think we're going to have to 
make a prudential decision about how much weight and additional 
topics that this kind of legislation can bear."

The bipartisan bill at the center of the emerging opioid abuse debate 
was drafted by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Known as the 
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, it would set up a 
grant program to provide state and local governments with resources 
for education and treatment for opioid abuse. The program would seek 
to reduce unnecessary prescriptions and work with criminal-justice 
and mental-health officials to try to lower rates of substance abuse 
and deaths from overdoses, as well as to ensure sufficient treatment.

The bill also would provide incentives to states to approve the use 
of naloxone, which can counteract overdoses, providing liability 
protections to those who distribute it.

"Solving this crisis requires a holistic approach," Ayotte said, 
speaking in support of the legislation before the Senate Judiciary 
Committee last week. "This is the most urgent public health and 
safety crisis facing my home state. . . . I have never seen anything 
like this."

But the measure is not the only opioid bill on offer.

At the same hearing, Shaheen stumped for a $600 million emergency 
supplemental bill to invest more money in combating the heroin 
epidemic. Anticipating the potential for pushback, she argued that 
the figure was far less than the $5.4 billion Congress approved in 
2014 to fight Ebola, even though far fewer Americans died of the 
outbreak than of heroin addiction. Ever since New Hampshire's chief 
medical examiner called the heroin epidemic "the Ebola of northern 
New England" last year, politicians have been paying close attention 
to the problem and the comparison.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said 
he'd like an effort to address the supply of heroin coming across the 
border from Mexico with more enforcement action- a potentially 
controversial move, as border security initiatives tend to spark 
heated debate over immigration.

"Mexican cartels are expanding into new territory because the 
administration hasn't secured the border," Grassley said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom