Casey: Drug experts need resources
A bipartisan bill addressing the nation’s opioid epidemic is making its way through Congress, but U.S. Sen. Bob Casey doesn’t think it’s enough to curtail addiction and overdoses.
The Pennsylvania Democrat Tuesday called on his peers to approve an amendment that would add $600 million in emergency funding to the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), that, as it now stands, would draw on $78 million in appropriations.
“There’s no easy solution … but I think there are a lot of common-sense steps we can take,” he said during a conference call.
Introduced in 2014, CARA provides state funding for education and treatment, prescription monitoring programs and access to naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses.
The Shaheen-Whitehouse Amendment would provide immediate funding for CARA programs and appropriate $230 million to fund state and local law enforcement initiatives, including treatment alternatives to incarceration, and $10 million to support police drug operations.
The amendment would also provide $300 million for states to fund prevention, recovery and treatment programs and $50 million for prescription drug monitoring programs, community health interventions and rapid-response projects.
Casey said the silver lining in the opioid epidemic is that “we know exactly what works.”
Long-term treatment is proven to be effective in addiction, he said, and people working to stop the epidemic – social workers, police officers and medical professionals – don’t need guidance from politicians in Washington, D.C.
“What they don’t need is more rhetoric; they need more resources,” Casey said.
Casey said funding for the amendment would come from existing appropriations but didn’t cite a specific source. He said $600 million is “easily doable,” especially since the federal government figures out a way to pay for a lot of things that are “less important.”
“We just have to respond to the crisis as its unfolding,” Casey said. “It’s not like (the opioid crisis is) going to slow down. It looks like it’s going to be with us for a number of years.”
A report released in 2015 ranks Pennsylvania as one of the top states for heroin overdoses, which are killing more people than car accidents.