A bipartisan group of senators Wednesday called on Congress to help fight the heroin and prescription opioid painkiller abuse epidemic that is plaguing the nation.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., called the epidemic “the most urgent public health and safety issue” facing her state.
“As of January 8 [2016], the number of drug overdose deaths for New Hampshire for 2015 was 385,” Ayotte said in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, before urging that arrests are not the simple solution to the problem.
Ayotte’s testimony was in support of a bill introduced last year by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., dubbed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA.
The legislation seeks to expand prevention, treatment and recovery efforts at both the state and local levels. It also makes it easier for the criminal justice system to identify and help treat prisoners who are suffering from drug addiction, instead of arresting them and sending them to prison.
CARA puts to use the nearly $100 million included in the end-of-the-year spending package put aside to combat heroin and opioid abuse.
“It’s an investment at a time when communities are desperate for resources,” said Portman, whose state joins New Hampshire as the five with the most drug overdose deaths per capita in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the CDC, 45 percent of people who used heroin nationwide were also addicted to prescription opioid painkillers. A record 47,000 people died in 2014 from drug overdose deaths, the CDC reported. Heroin use has increased among most demographic groups too over the years, the CDC said, especially among non-Hispanic whites and those aged 18-25.
“This disease knows no racial boundaries, it knows no income boundaries, it knows no partisan boundaries,” Gov. Peter Shumlin, D-Vermont, testified Wednesday. “Everybody’s in, and I think we have to have a more honest discussion about what led us into this mess.”
“We need financial help,” he added. “The states cannot do this alone.”
Louis J. Milione, a top official at the Drug Enforcement Administration told the committee that heroin and opioid abuse is “the No. 1 drug threat facing our country.”
