Rep. Kaptur Hails Final Passage of Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act

July 13, 2016

~ Warns of Shortsighted Funding Limitations, Likely Delays ~

Washington, DC — Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) today praised the passage by the Senate of the Conference Report on S. 524, Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2015. Kaptur was a major booster of the House version of CARA, which passed overwhelmingly last week. The measure creates a number of new federal grant programs meant to support locally-based treatment and recovery initiatives that will be the subject of future funding debates in an era of limited resources.

Given the reality of the budget constraints Kaptur was somber about CARA’s immediate impact.

“The bipartisan passage of CARA is certainly a positive step, and I supported it given that the alternative is to do nothing,” said Congresswoman Kaptur. “But let’s not oversell it as a panacea to the heroin and opioid epidemic. It is not. Unlike other legislative responses to similar national emergencies, CARA contains no emergency funds, which can be spent right away. That delays funding for months, perhaps years. People are overdosing every day, communities need money now.”

The compromise CARA proposal was approved by the Senate on a 90 to 2 vote, after the House had approved the measure last Friday on 407-5 vote. The measure now goes to President Barack Obama’s desk for his likely approval.

“This is a public health crisis that has affected every community in northern Ohio,” said Kaptur, a member of the House Heroin Task Force who has been active on building support in the House for a comprehensive measure. “It has affected families across the economic and social spectrum. No neighborhood or community has escaped this scourge, and now that concentrated synthetic fentanyl is widely available, this is an epidemic like no other.”

“But the sad reality is that given the current budget limitations funds will always be limited, and likely delayed,” added Kaptur. “We can still expect partisan fights over what programs will be cut in order to fund the new CARA programs meant to address the heroin and opioid scourge that has damaged every community in Ohio. And since this Republican Congress seems once again incapable of passing a federal budget by the September 30th deadline, needed funds meant for local frontline programs that deal with providing treatment will be further delayed.”

CARA’s funding shortfalls has real consequences for northern Ohio cities and communities, which has experienced a real addiction crisis and a record number of heroin and opioid fatalities.
In June Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson reported a record 45 fatal overdoses attributed to either heroin or fentanyl occurred in the month of May. The total was the highest of any month in 2016, putting the county on track to have roughly 500 people die from the drugs, twice the 2015 overdose numbers. Last week Akron saw 17 suspected heroin overdoses in that one day, caused in several cases by the powerful painkiller fentanyl.

In Toledo there were 215 heroin- and opioid-related deaths in 2015 in the 19 northwest Ohio counties and Branch and Hillsdale counties in Michigan for which the Lucas County Coroner’s Office performs autopsies. In 2016 the overdose death rate is up about 15 percent, with a projected annual death rate of roughly 250 heroin- and opioid-related deaths by the end of 2016. Lucas County experienced 133 heroin-related overdose deaths in 2015, with some 30 from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate that is more potent than heroin or morphine. Fentanyl-related deaths have skyrocketed in the last year locally, according to Dr. Robert Forney, Lucas County's chief toxicologist.

The final stages of the legislative negotiations on the CARA package were not without major disagreements in funding priorities. The Conference Committee version of CARA left funding for some important priorities at risk, and instead of protecting important treatment and prevention programs, the final compromise version rolls funding for these programs into a single block grant program in a way that threatens funding for each individual initiative. Essentially, it pits one priority against another to be decided by individual State governors and their appointees. House Democrats had attempted to add $920 million to assure funding availability, but were rebuffed by House Republicans.

CARA would, among other things:

expand the availability of naloxone (narcan) to law enforcement agencies and other first responders to help in the reversal of overdoses to save lives;
direct the to convene a Pain Management Best Practice Inter-Agency taskforce to develop both best practices for pain management and prescribing pain medication and a strategy for dissemination;
launch an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program to expand best practices throughout the country;
expand resources to identify and treat incarcerated individuals suffering from addiction disorders promptly by collaborating with criminal justice stakeholders and by providing evidence-based treatment;
expand disposal sites for unwanted prescription medications to keep them out of the hands of our children and adolescents;
require the FDA to issue final guidance for generic drugs that claim abuse deterrence within 18 months of when the measure becomes law; and
strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs to help states monitor and track prescription drug diversion and to help at-risk individuals access services.

For background on CARA’s House-Senate conference agreement: https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/documents/114/20160706JES.pdf
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