[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 133 (Wednesday, September 17, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5701-S5702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. WHITEHOUSE (for himself, Mr. Portman, Ms. Klobuchar, Ms. 
        Ayotte, and Mr. Leahy):
  S. 2839. A bill to authorize the Attorney General to award grants to 
address the national epidemics of prescription opioid abuse and heroin 
use; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague from 
Rhode Island to talk a little bit about a very important piece of 
legislation we are introducing. It is called the Comprehensive 
Addiction and Recovery Act of 2014. I think it is fair to say that 
Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island and I do not agree on everything 
in this body that comes up--all the policy issues. But on this one we 
agree that it is necessary to develop and implement a comprehensive 
strategy to deal with this heroin epidemic that is sweeping across our 
country.
  He has been an unwavering ally in trying to find common ground on 
this legislation. I appreciate him. Again, I think this is an area 
where we can find common ground on both sides of the aisle and both 
sides of the Capitol to move legislation forward that can help to deal 
with this growing issue in our States.
  I do not think we can afford to wait. Every day, unfortunately, the 
number of people who die from heroin overdoses grows. Every day more 
mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters are lost 
to this horrible scourge. By the time this year is out, I am told that 
more than 19,000 Ohioans will have overdosed on heroin or other 
opiates. The deaths from heroin overdoses this year will be the No. 1 
cause of death in the State of Ohio, exceeding traffic accidents.
  Elected officials around the country, medical professionals, and 
grass roots volunteers are dealing with this issue. They are fighting 
back. They are doing everything in their power to try to save lives and 
to try to stem this epidemic. But they need help. The challenge we all 
face is serious. To address it we need a comprehensive effort, 
marshaling the resources of communities, grass roots organizations, 
local, State, and, yes, the Federal Government. That is where we come 
in here, in the Congress.
  I think only together can we make progress here and prevent new 
victims from falling into the grips of addiction. Only together can we 
help those who are already struggling with heroin to rebuild their 
lives. I think this bipartisan legislation we have introduced today is 
the important first step in that. It lays out a broad spectrum response 
to the epidemic of heroin and opiate addiction.
  It starts with prevention and education. Why? Because we know that 
approach can work. Obviously, it is the most effective way to deal with 
this, to keep you from getting into the addiction in the first place. 
Nearly 20 years ago I joined with leaders around southwest Ohio to form 
what is called the Coalition for a Drug Free Greater Cincinnati. I was 
here in the Congress on the House side. A constituent came to me and 
said her son had just died from an overdose of smoking marijuana and 
huffing gasoline. I was ready for her. I had all the statistics as to 
what we were doing at the Federal level in terms of eradicating crops 
in places like Colombia, interdicting drugs, prosecuting people, trying 
to stop the flow of drugs into this country.
  She kind of looked at me and said: How is that going to help me and 
my community? How would that have helped my kid? How does that help me 
deal with our church, where people are in denial and will not even talk 
about it, or our school, where the principal said: It is not a problem 
here.
  So we came up with this notion of these community coalitions. There 
were a few around the country, and they seemed to be working. Ours in 
greater Cincinnati has worked well. It is still working well. By 
working together with grass roots organizations across the spectrum--
teachers and parents, law enforcement, religious leaders, the media, 
business--we pulled together a group. That coalition led to this 
greater effort that we started in the House, and there is legislation 
that I authored called the Drug-Free Communities Act, which has now 
provided funding, by the way, and therefore helped to create thousands 
of other community coalitions. It has provided funding to over 2,000 
community coalitions around the country. There are now about 5,000, I 
think, around the country. Those have worked. But they are not adequate 
to deal with this heroin epidemic.
  But we start there. We start with this notion that there is a way, 
through a grass roots program, for more focus on prevention and 
education to be able to help stem this growing problem; that is, 
stopping addiction before it even starts. That, of course, again, is 
the most effective way. It saves money, saves lives. We also, though, 
have to do more to incentivize new innovative treatment programs for 
those who have become addicted to try to break the cycle and break the 
addiction.
  We do that in this legislation by encouraging diversion programs like 
drug courts that provide treatment alternatives to incarceration. We do 
it by funding evidence-based heroin treatment pilot programs. There are 
some exciting new medications out there that we think are worth a try, 
including some new medications that actually block the urge, the 
craving. We are funding evidence-based treatment programs, but at the 
same time encouraging the use of emergency medications to stop 
overdoses.
  This is something we have seen in all of our States. It expands the 
availability of Naloxone, which is an overdose inhibitor that the law 
enforcement agencies and other first responders have access to in order 
to be able to keep people not from overdosing--which is happening--but 
from dying from that overdose.
  We know that there have been many lives saved, even over the last 
couple of years through the use of that medication. We offer more 
resources to promptly identify and treat incarcerated individuals 
suffering from addiction disorders by collaborating with criminal 
justice stakeholders and, again, providing evidence-based treatment. 
This revolving door in the criminal justice system of people who are 
drug users getting into prison, getting out again--and within 2 or 3 
years over two-thirds of them are back in the system--we are all paying 
for that. The communities are paying for it with increased crime. The 
families are paying for it. The taxpayers are also paying for it--
$25,000, $30,000 a year for incarcerating individuals, who, if you can 
get them into a drug treatment program, in part through these drug 
courts, in part through other programs that are proven to work, they 
can then not just get over their addiction and not be committing crimes 
but become productive citizens and taxpayers themselves.
  We have seen this lap around the country. We have to be encouraging 
that and supporting that at the Federal level. I saw a model of this 
kind of approach when I visited the CompDrug treatment center recently 
in Columbus, OH. I met with several nurses and

[[Page S5702]]

counselors who are there on the front lines in the battle against 
addiction. They used medication-assisted treatment, but they also use a 
lot of counseling to help men and women get on this path to recovery. 
So it is not just the medication, but it has to be a more comprehensive 
plan. They do this in both a public health capacity but also in 
connection with a prisoner reentry program.
  So, again, it is people coming out of the criminal justice system who 
have a history of addiction and to get them into this program so they 
can get not just the treatment they need to get over their addiction 
but the job training they also need to be able to get back into the 
workforce to become productive citizens.
  We do not stop here in this legislation. If there is one thing I have 
learned over the last couple of decades working in this area, it is 
that the best solutions on this are not going to come from Washington. 
They are going to be developed at the grass roots, on the ground.
  What we can do is support those efforts on the ground and provide 
States with more flexibility to be able to use these resources that are 
already coming from Washington, so our legislation does that as well.
  Our bill offers States that are proactive at enacting proven policies 
the ability to benefit from support under State incentive grants. These 
grants will reward States such as Ohio that are improving access to 
drug-abuse services for specific at-risk individuals and that are 
working to reach 100-percent compliance with programs such as the 
prescription drug monitoring program that tracks prescription drugs.
  Some States such as Ohio--where we have a big prescription drug 
problem--there is also southern Ohio with adjoining States West 
Virginia and Kentucky that have this issue and without a sufficient 
monitoring program. Some people are getting prescription drugs filled 
in Ohio and then going across the river to Kentucky and getting them 
filled. There is no way to monitor that without an effective program. 
We want to encourage all States to adopt this kind of a program so we 
know who is getting prescription drugs, who needs them and who is 
abusing the process.
  We also talk about this issue in the abstract. I have done that today 
talking about numbers--19,000 overdoses. But what does that mean? It is 
a shockingly high number. We sometimes forget that every one of those 
overdoses represents a person, a family member, someone who has hopes 
and dreams, someone who at some point made a mistake, and now that 
mistake threatens those dreams and often devastates their family, as I 
have seen and I am sure you have seen. Sometimes it can even result in 
that person's death. As we talk about overdoses this year, it will be 
the No. 1 cause of death in my State of Ohio.
  I want to share a couple stories briefly before I close, people I 
have met in Ohio, people in communities in my State who are struggling 
with the weight of addiction.
  I recently met a guy about my age. His name is Paul. Paul came to a 
roundtable discussion and has been engaged in this issue because his 
son died of a heroin overdose. He was 19 years old. He died of an 
overdose 2 days after getting out of rehab. Sadly, that is not an 
uncommon story. People go into rehab to turn their lives around and 
many are successful, but many aren't. For some of them when they get 
out, the temptation is too great and unfortunately their body no longer 
has the tolerance for the drug it once did and sometimes they overdose. 
His son was one of those.
  This man has been in a lot of pain, I could tell. He is still in a 
lot of pain. But where he has channeled his grief and his pain is 
helping others to overcome addiction and to bring this discussion out 
of the dark, to talk about it.
  It is not a comfortable topic for a lot of people to talk about, but 
he has been willing to do it, to talk about his family situation and 
talk about the fact that every family around the kitchen table ought to 
be talking about this subject. We ought to be talking about it in the 
classrooms. We ought to be sure that people understand the incredible 
risk and danger our young people face today.
  Earlier this year I met a young woman named Sarah. Sarah has been 
struggling to overcome her own addiction. She has been successful, and 
I applaud her. She told me: Addiction starts in treatment, Rob, but it 
also happens in the community. You have to have a surrounding that 
supports you and encourages you.
  She is fighting her own battle, but she is also doing something 
interesting at Ohio State University. She has started a student-led 
recovery program, kind of a support network among students.
  Again, often this is in the shadows. She has been the one to step 
forward and say: Hey, I have an issue. I am a recovering addict, and I 
want other recovering addicts to come and join me and feel support so 
they don't do what Paul's son did.
  Then there is Bill. Bill is in recovery from a heroin addiction that 
he told me used to cost him $2,000 a week at its height. It cost him 
his freedom too. He ended up in prison. When he got out of prison, he 
was able to take advantage of some of these programs we talked about 
today, some of these prisoner re-entry programs and treatment options. 
Bill turned his life around. Interestingly, he now works at the very 
corrections facility where he once served.
  As he joked with me, he said: I used to be behind bars. Now I hold 
the keys to the cells and I am spreading a message.
  I imagine he is a very credible spokesperson for that message. He is 
working with inmates to help build relationships and re-entry programs, 
not just in the prison behind the walls, but also in his community in 
Canton, OH.
  He encourages employers to give people a second chance, to give them 
a shot. His quote to me was: Don't give them the keys to the safe on 
the first day, but give them a shot. It worked for me. It can work for 
others.
  This battle against addiction will not be an easy one, we know that, 
but we also know it is well worth the fight. We have to take the fight.
  When we see the number of overdoses drop, and we see statistics 
showing that fewer kids are using drugs and more people are breaking 
free of the addiction that once held them, we will know it paid off. It 
is not only about dollars and cents. Yes, we can save taxpayer money, 
we can be sure that more people are productively employed, and that our 
society is more efficient and communities are safer, but ultimately 
this is about our young people and what kind of future they are going 
to have.
  It is about our children and our grandchildren. Will they have a 
better shot at their dream, a better shot at getting through school, 
getting an education, a better shot at getting a decent job and being 
able to hold it, and a better shot at being able to take care of their 
own families and having the dignity and self-respect that comes with 
that? That is ultimately what this legislation is about.
  I thank Senator Whitehouse for joining with me to craft this 
legislation. I also thank Senator Leahy, who I understand has recently 
agreed to become an original cosponsor of this bill.
  I encourage other Members to take a look at it. It is a good way for 
us to come together as Republicans and Democrats to focus on an issue 
that is affecting every single State represented in this body.
  Sometimes people are in denial about this subject, but the reality is 
it affects all of us as Americans.
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