If all of them pass, Collins says there will be significantly more funding to address the nationwide epidemic than there was this year. “My measure will help seniors battling addiction get treatment, while preventing fraudsters from visiting multiple doctors and pharmacies to obtain commercial-scale quantities of opioids, which are then diverted to the black market”.
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“We have a major opioid addiction problem in Florida and throughout our nation, and this legislation is an important step to addressing this health crisis that is taking lives and destroying families”, Rubio wrote.
It expands prevention and education efforts, and promotes resources for treatment and recovery. I see how heroin and prescription drug abuse is wrecking lives and destroying families, which is why past year, at my request, Michael Botticelli, the director of National Drug Control Policy – known as the nation’s drug czar – visited Kentucky and participated in a community discussion about the challenges faced by those in the medical, public health and law enforcement fields who confront drug addiction on a regular basis.
It expands the availability of naloxone, a life-saving drug that helps to reverse overdoses, and creates disposal sites for unwanted prescriptions.
Also the bill will help newborns dealing with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and provide safer and more effective pain management services to veterans.
The task force is responsible for reviewing, modifying and updating guidelines for prescribers of pain medication that were released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year. While we’re waiting, more than 6,000 Americans will die from opioid overdose, and thousands more from alcohol-related deaths.
Lastly, the bill includes provisions to protect this epidemic’s youngest victims: babies born exposed to opioids during pregnancy.
“We need access”, he said. “We shouldn’t delay funding when lives, families and communities are at stake”.
In fiscal year 2016, which will end in October, Congress allocated $320 million toward addiction treatment, an increase over the $219 million in 2015.
The administration told reporters last Tuesday that numerous CARA bill’s provisions mirror its own priorities, but that without substantial funding, “they are really insufficient to make a dent in providing treatment for people who desperately need it”, said Michael Botticelli, director of National Drug Control Policy. “These are our kids, our neighbors, our friends”. Last week, congressional Democrats tried to add $920 million in new funding to the CARA bill.
The opioid legislation is a top priority for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and gives Republican Senate and House leaders an election-year, bipartisan victory on a major issue of concern to voters. And I want to thank Sens.
These powerful words illustrate just how dire the situation is in West Virginia.
Senator Patty Murray mentioned that the bill would only pave forward if they would be able to generate sufficient funding for the patients’ treatment.
The final agreement on CARA authorizes – or directs the government to spend – an additional $181 million for drug abuse and treatment programs, but because CARA is not a funding bill, the money will need to be appropriated later through separate legislation.
We are in jeopardy of losing a generation if we don’t address this crisis now.
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Both were among a handful of Senate Republicans who backed legislation, which was rejected, from Sen.
