[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 74 (Wednesday, May 11, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H2268-H2270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JOHN THOMAS DECKER ACT OF 2016
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4969) to amend the Public Health Service Act to direct the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide for informational
materials to educate and prevent addiction in teenagers and adolescents
who are injured playing youth sports and subsequently prescribed an
opioid, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 4969
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``John Thomas Decker Act of
2016''.
SEC. 2. INFORMATION MATERIALS AND RESOURCES TO PREVENT
ADDICTION RELATED TO YOUTH SPORTS INJURIES.
(a) Technical Clarification.--Effective as if included in
the enactment of the Children's Health Act of 2000 (Public
Law 106-310), section 3405(a) of such Act (114 Stat. 1221) is
amended by striking ``Part E of title III'' and inserting
``Part E of title III of the Public Health Service Act''.
[[Page H2269]]
(b) Amendment.--Title III of the Public Health Service Act
is amended by inserting after part D of such title (42 U.S.C.
254b et seq.) the following new part E:
``PART E--OPIOID USE DISORDER
``SEC. 341. INFORMATION MATERIALS AND RESOURCES TO PREVENT
ADDICTION RELATED TO YOUTH SPORTS INJURIES.
``(a) Report.--The Secretary shall--
``(1) not later than 24 months after the date of the
enactment of this section, make publicly available a report
determining the extent to which informational materials and
resources described in subsection (b) are available to
teenagers and adolescents who play youth sports, families of
such teenagers and adolescents, nurses, youth sports groups,
and relevant health care provider groups; and
``(2) for purposes of educating and preventing addiction in
teenagers and adolescents who are injured playing youth
sports and are subsequently prescribed an opioid, not later
than 12 months after such report is made publicly available
and taking into consideration the findings of such report,
develop and, in coordination with youth sports groups,
disseminate informational materials and resources described
in subsection (b) for teenagers and adolescents who play
youth sports, families of such teenagers and adolescents,
nurses, youth sports groups, and relevant health care
provider groups.
``(b) Materials and Resources Described.--For purposes of
this section, the informational materials and resources
described in this subsection are informational materials and
resources with respect to youth sports injuries for which
opioids are potentially prescribed and subsequently
potentially lead to addiction, including materials and
resources focused on the dangers of opioid use and misuse,
treatment options for such injuries that do not involve the
use of opioids, and how to seek treatment for addiction.
``(c) No Additional Funds.--No additional funds are
authorized to be appropriated for the purpose of carrying out
this section. This section shall be carried out using amounts
otherwise available for such purpose.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky.
General Leave
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to
include any extraneous material in the Record on the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Kentucky?
There was no objection.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4969, the
John Thomas Decker Act of 2016, introduced by my colleagues, Mr. Meehan
of Pennsylvania, Mr. Kind of Wisconsin, Mr. Rooney of Florida, and Mr.
Veasey of Texas.
Young athletes have been disproportionately impacted by the opioid
epidemic currently plaguing our country. One study found that
adolescent males who played sports were twice as likely to be
prescribed opioids than their peers and four times more likely to abuse
them than nonathletes. Writing a prescription for opioids in a
population that may not fully grasp the risk associated with the drugs
can be dangerous and lead to unintended negative outcomes.
H.R. 4969 amends the Public Health Service Act to direct the
Secretary of Health and Human Services to study what information and
resources are available to youth athletes and their families regarding
the dangers of opioid use and abuse, nonopioid treatment options, and
how to seek additional addiction treatment.
The Secretary would then be required to report the findings and work
with stakeholders to disseminate resources to students, parents, and
those involved in treating a sports-related injury.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
I rise in support of H.R. 4969, the John Thomas Decker Act.
A crisis of this magnitude requires a multiprong, robust response
across the full continuum of those exposed to and affected by
addiction. People suffering from addiction are originally prescribed or
exposed to opioids in a wide variety of circumstances, one of which is
through youth sports injuries.
H.R. 4969, the John Thomas Decker Act, will bring needed education on
the danger of opioids and the benefits of alternative approaches to
pain treatment to youth sports.
The John Thomas Decker Act will direct the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and the National Center for Injury Prevention to
examine and report on what informational materials and resources are
currently available to teenagers and adolescents participating in
sports on the dangers of opioid use and misuse, alternative treatment
options, and how to seek treatment for addiction.
Based on the findings of this report, the legislation directs the CDC
and the National Center for Injury Prevention to develop and
disseminate such informational materials as necessary.
Young people playing sports who incur an injury for which painkillers
are frequently prescribed can be uniquely vulnerable to addiction if
they or their parents, guardians, and coaches are not well informed of
the potential for misuse, abuse, and addiction.
H.R. 4969 will play a role in helping curb the epidemic opioid abuse
and heroin use by ensuring adequate and appropriately tailored
resources for our Nation's youth.
I thank the bill sponsor, Representative Meehan, for introducing this
legislation. I encourage my colleagues to support the John Thomas
Decker Act.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Meehan).
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues from both sides of the
aisle for their strong support of this very, very important bill, which
will use the resources of the Centers for Disease Control in very
important outreach to young people, particularly student athletes.
Now, we have heard heart-wrenching stories all day long about the
tremendous growth of the use of opioids. In fact, 207 million
prescriptions were written in 2013 for opioids. Unfortunately, that has
led to about 2.1 million Americans who are hooked on opioids.
And when the opioid is not available, we have begun to see them
switch to a cheaper alternative, which is heroin. 450 million Americans
are currently hooked on heroin.
I know in my own State of Pennsylvania we lose seven people a day to
heroin addiction. We are seeing it in the important nature of the
comprehensive bills that have been put forward today. We are seeing it
in veterans. Many are coming back with traumatic injury and are finding
release in the opioids. We are seeing it in pregnant mothers and the
impact that it has in children. One of the single biggest increase is
in women, mothers who are over 30.
One of the niches that is often underappreciated, but remarkably
dangerous, is young student athletes. The reason being is that young
student athletes are more inclined than just about anybody else to
suffer sports-related injuries. Some of those injuries can be serious,
and what we are seeing is a high rate of prescription of opioids for
some of these athletes.
Now, in the NCAA, you have a little bit more oversight. Even there,
we see abuse. Almost 26 percent of college-level athletes will use
opioids at some point in time, many without prescriptions.
Where the real danger comes down is at the high school level. I have
the good privilege of chairing one of the youth sports caucuses with my
good friend, Mr. Kind of Wisconsin. We deal with a broad variety of
issues promoting healthy activity and youth sports, but we are seeing a
piece of this challenge right now in which we are watching the opioid
addiction and problems with young athletes.
Eleven percent of high school athletes will use painkillers without a
prescription. That is something that I talked to one of the trainers in
my high school, a student trainer, about how kids who want to play in
the game will hide their injuries and self-medicate. What a danger that
is.
This brings me to the young man who inspired this bill, the John
Thomas Decker Act. This is John Thomas Decker. I had the privilege of
knowing John personally and knowing his wonderful family.
John was an incredible athlete. I watched him play football. He set a
receiving record that was held for nearly a decade in our region of
Pennsylvania.
He went on to play lacrosse at Cornell University in a program that
won
[[Page H2270]]
a national championship. So John was the consummate blue-chip athlete
and a wonderful kid to boot. He was a great student and a great leader.
But John, like so many other kids, fought through the pain because he
wanted to play. So what he did was he self-medicated and began to deal
with the issue of opioid addiction.
Now, John worked his way through it as an athlete, but later in life
returned again to using opioids and, ultimately, heroin. Ultimately, it
led to his death.
His story inspired me to say we have to do something about it because
many high school kids just like John who are playing through the pain
believe that, because they are using the opioids and because they are
prescription medicines, somehow there is no danger of any kind of
addiction or otherwise, that somehow it is nowhere near as dangerous as
heroin. Yet, it is unfortunately too easy.
In fact, one of the other misconceptions is: I don't have to worry
about a dependency. But the medical authorities have confirmed that
daily use for even a short period of time, just a few weeks or even
days, can create the kind of psychological dependency in which there is
the beginning of the misuse of the opioids.
One of the things we begin to see as well is, as the opioid begins to
lose its protective effect, they will take more and higher doses in
order to have the same pain-killing capacity. So they start to move
further on down the chain.
Oftentimes they are able to kick it for a period of time. But when
they come back, they will go back to using the opioid at the higher
level than they once did before. Imagine the implication of that.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, the CDC is in a position now to be able to
utilize the resources it has to do a better study of making sure that
we are aware of the information and resources that are being made
available to those who are in the privity of relationship with these
students--these can be coaches; these can be school nurses; these can
be the students themselves--and then come up with a plan for us to be
able to distribute this in an effective manner, all the way down
through the network.
There can be appropriate use under medical care with the kind of
attention to concerns about addiction so that, where there is
legitimate pain--we don't want to suggest that there is never a use,
but this will now create the kinds of guidelines in which there is
genuine oversight if opioids are introduced.
This will also give the kinds of guidelines to local trainers and
others, even local physicians, about taking more time to assess the
backgrounds of individuals that they are giving the opioids to, not
appreciating perhaps that a young man may be dealing with depression or
other kinds of things, a binge drinker in association with that opioid
that could lead to death.
All of these things are things that could be part of the CDC's
approach to doing much better education so that we can prevent the next
young star athlete like John from coming into opioid addiction and
ultimately leading to his demise.
Let us let John's voice be heard. Let us use this as the opportunity
to ensure that future student athletes are not addicted to opioids.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my
time.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Carter).
Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Kentucky for his work on this bill.
I rise today in support of H.R. 4969 because opioid addiction does
not discriminate based on age.
H.R. 4969 requires the CDC to report on information regarding
prescription opioid abuse after youth sports injuries. According to a
study by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, 12
percent of male athletes and 8 percent of female athletes have used
prescription opioids in the last 12 months.
According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, 80 percent of these teenagers and adolescents made the
switch to heroin after abusing opioid painkillers, according to the
U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This is
completely unacceptable and 100 percent preventable.
Every effort should be made to ensure that our youth are protected
from the trap of drug abuse. That is why I am supporting H.R. 4969. We
need all the information available so we can take the right steps to
ensure our youth are protected.
I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 4969.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4969,
the ``John Thomas Decker Act of 2016.''
Our nation values the importance of transparency and availability of
public information regarding prescription drugs.
This bill amends the Public Health Service Act to require the
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention to report on the availability of
information regarding prescription of opioids after youth sports
injury.
This report includes the information on opioid use and misuse, injury
treatments that do not involve opioids, and treatment for opioid
addiction.
The report must determine the extent this information is available to
teenagers and adolescents who play youth sports, their families, youth
sports groups, and health care providers.
Opioids are drugs with effects similar to opium, such as heroin and
certain pain medications.
In addition to stimulants and central nervous system (CNS)
depressants, prescription opioids are one of the three main broad
categories of medications that present abuse liability.
Due to prescription opioids' similarity to heroin and morphine, they
present an intrinsic abuse and addiction liability for non-medical
purposes.
Opioid, heroin, and morphine act on the same brain systems.
In an effort to increase their euphoric effects, the ``high'', people
tend to take them in their most dangerous and addictive methods.
Understanding the dangers of these addictive drugs highlight the
importance of John Thomas Decker Act, which increases awareness and
educating the youth people of the adverse effects of opioids.
H.R. 4969 also allows for public transparency in making available
public reports, informational materials, and resources are available to
teenagers, their families, and health professionals.
Our country has acknowledged the importance of preventive healthcare
and education within our nation.
Providing education to those directly or indirectly associated with
opioid usage enables them to have control over their thoughts and
actions, offsetting the potential for drug abuse.
I support this legislation because it will help protect the integrity
of consumers through implementation of effective preventative
strategies.
H.R. 4969 provides the National Center for Injury Prevention and
Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with specific
responsibilities for dissemination.
H.R. 4969 is a positive step in the right direction and I urge my
colleagues to join me in supporting its passage.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 4969, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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