Senate comes together to fight opioid crisis
(Worthy News) – The Senate will vote this week on a massive bipartisan bill that combines 70 different measures aimed at reducing addiction and drug overdose deaths from opioids such as heroin and prescription painkillers.
The vote on the bill, the Opioid Crisis Response Act, is a culmination of months of hearings and negotiations across five committees. Supporters hope that the legislation will help reduce death tolls from opioid overdoses, which early data show surpassed 40,000 people in 2017.
The legislation provides more access to medical treatment for addiction, additional funding for states to carry out their programs, and gives the National Institutes of Health more power to carry out research on treatment for pain and addiction. It allows the Food and Drug Administration to limit how many prescription opioids, such as OxyContin, doctors are allowed to give patients and to set guidelines for how they can be packaged so that they are harder for children to get. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]