In early October, in a rare act of bipartisanship, Congress approved a legislative package to address the opioid epidemic, sending it to the President for his signature. The conference report on the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act passed the Senate on October 3 by a vote of 98 to 1, and the House on October 5 by a vote of 393 to 8. The legislation:

• Reauthorizes funding for the 21st Century Cures Act, passed by the previous Congress, which provided $500 million annually to combat the opioid crisis, and gives States more flexibility in using the funding.
• Creates a grant program for Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers to meet the addiction treatment recovery needs of communities.
• Lifts restrictions on opioid addiction medications, allowing more health care practitioners to prescribe the drugs.
• Expands an existing program that attempts to get more first responders, such as police and firefighters, to carry and use naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdose.
• Allows Federal agencies to pursue more research projects related to addiction and pain.
  Seeks to limit the overprescription of opioid pain­killers within Medicare and Medicaid and expand access to addiction treatment.
• Promotes coordination among Federal agencies to stop illicit drugs like fentanyl at the border and gives agencies more authority to improve detection and testing at border checks.
• Increases penalties for drug manufacturers and dis­tributors related to the overprescribing of opioids.
• Allows the Food and Drug Administration to require prescription opioids to be packaged in set amounts, such as a three- or seven-day supply.

Despite its broad support, some argued that it isn’t aggressive enough in confronting the opioid epidemic. Representative Elijah Cummings (MD-D) said:

“Unless we significantly expand funding and re­sources for treatment, this national crisis will continue to worsen. This epidemic is killing 134 people a day, but only one in 10 people with the disease are getting treatment.”

Representative Cummings has cosponsored leg­islation with Senator Elizabeth Warren (MA-D) titled the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, modeled on the Ryan White Comprehensive Resources Emergency Act. That law, enacted nearly 30 years ago, provided significant new funding to help State and local governments combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

From the November 2018 issue of Congressional Digest. Read the complete issue. Also see the February 2018 issue of Congressional Digest titled, “Opioid Crisis.”