[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 148 (Thursday, September 29, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6257-S6260]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PRESCRIPTION DRUG AND HEROIN EPIDEMIC
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I am on the floor to talk about an
epidemic that has gripped my State of Ohio and affected every single
State in this body in every community we represent; that is, the issue
of prescription drug, heroin, and now fentanyl and other synthetic
heroin addiction.
This epidemic is affecting our communities in fundamental ways. It is
breaking families apart. It is causing crime. In fact, in my home State
of Ohio, as I talk to law enforcement officials in every county, they
tell me it is the top reason for crime and the growth of crime.
It is affecting our first responders. When I go to a firehouse now
and talk to firefighters about what they do with most of their time,
they tell me they do a lot more heroin runs than fire runs, and thank
God because they are out there saving lives every single day. They now
carry Narcan with them, which is a form of naloxone, which is a miracle
drug that reduces the dangers because it reverses the effects of an
overdose. They have provided Narcan 19,000 times in the last year in
Ohio. This is something that is out there in all of our communities.
Sometimes there is a huge spike in these overdoses. Sadly, we had
that this week in Columbus, OH, when in the space of 24 hours we had 27
overdoses. I have been working with the county coroner's office and
with the health department in the city of Columbus to try to help them
determine what the cause of this spike in overdoses was. It appears to
be another case where there is a particularly dangerous batch of
heroin, and it probably
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has something to do with these synthetic heroins that are coming into
the States and our country--fentanyl, carfentanil, or U-4. A few flakes
of carfentanil ingested can kill you. This is very dangerous stuff. I
wish I could say it is getting better, but I fear it is only getting
worse.
I have been on this floor talking about this issue every single week
since February. During that time period, we passed, by a vote of 92 to
2, legislation to help address this issue. A vote of 92 to 2 is a rare
vote in this place. Because Republicans and Democrats came together on
this issue, we were able to pass something that will help. We spent
3\1/2\ years working on it--my colleague Senator Whitehouse and I and
others were very involved--to help ensure that we can get better
prevention and education efforts out there; do more in terms of
treatment for people who are addicted and need to get help; provide
longer term recovery, which we believe is essential to successful
treatment because all the facts indicate that unless you have the
longer term recovery, the relapse rate is very high.
We also help our police officers, our firefighters, and other first
responders by saying: Let's get them the Narcan they need and the
training they need to be able to save those lives.
Very specifically, it also helps our veterans and pregnant women who
are addicted and these babies born with dependency. Some very specific
programs are going to help to turn the tide.
Overall, I would say the legislation is important because for the
first time ever not only is Congress supporting recovery, as we talked
about, but we are also finally addressing this issue as it needs to be
addressed, as a public health issue, saying that this is not a question
of someone making a bad moral choice as much as it is a disease. It
needs to be treated like a disease. Until addiction is treated as a
disease, I think it is going to be very difficult for us to turn this
tide and begin to save these lives.
In my home State, it has been the top cause of accidental death,
surpassing car accidents, probably since 2007. Sadly, that is now the
case in many States around the country. Nationally, we believe it is
the No. 1 cause of accidental death. Think about that.
It is a situation that affects every State and our entire country, so
in the legislation that was passed yesterday, called the continuing
resolution, which is basically just a bill to continue the funding of
government through December--it is a short-term spending bill--we were
able to include $37 million to help implement this legislation, the
Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. I am very proud of that. I am
very pleased that this Senate and the House were willing to go along
with that.
I know it is unusual because typically in a continuing resolution,
you simply fund the previous year's funding and there are no new
programs, no new starts. Frankly, the administration did not recommend
a new start in this instance, although they did recommend an anomaly or
an addition to the CR in 27 other areas. We had to rely on Members in
the House and the Senate to do the right thing, to make an exception,
and to include this funding. I thank my colleagues for doing that.
I think it is critical that we begin to fully fund this Comprehensive
Addiction and Recovery Act--otherwise known as CARA--and do it now and
not wait until the regular appropriations process in December.
That $37 million will help us stand up some programs. In particular,
there are four I want to mention this morning. One is the community-
based coalition prevention grants, the second is the grants for access
to overdose treatment, the third is the recovery grants, and the fourth
is the State incentive grants for a comprehensive response to this
opioid issue. In other words, we are dealing with prevention,
education, treatment, and recovery, helping the States be more engaged
and involved in this issue so the Federal Government can be a better
partner.
On the prevention side, what it does is start to tell people what is
going on. We are doing that here today on the floor but specifically to
let people know what this connection is between prescription drugs,
prescription drug overprescribing and abuse, and heroin and fentanyl.
The reason I think this is very important is that probably four out of
five heroin addicts in Ohio started with prescription drugs. Many
people don't know that. When they are prescribed a prescription drug
for pain relief, sometimes they don't realize the potential for
addiction.
To the young people who are listening today, you need to know this.
You need to understand this. Everybody does. Again, if we are going to
turn the tide, we have to change the way we deal with it to ensure that
people are getting the education they need to avoid getting into the
funnel of addiction in the first place.
This program called CARA also increases the availability naloxone, or
Narcan, which is very important. It has long-term recovery grants,
including grants for recovery colleges, recovery universities. In other
words, there are programs within colleges and universities to help on
recovery because unfortunately we are finding that many of our students
need these recovery programs as they are trying to work through their
addiction. It also supports recovery high schools and increases
eligibility for alternatives to incarceration--drug courts and veterans
courts. So instead of putting people in jail for using these drugs, we
say: Let's do a diversion. If you stay sober and clean, you will stay
out of jail and we will get you into treatment. As I have seen around
our State, these programs can help people get back on their feet.
These are critical changes. The experts who helped us write this
legislation over the last 3\1/2\ years, who came here to Washington,
where we held four different conferences on this issue and brought in
the best minds, the best practices, tell us they believe this
legislation will make a difference in our communities day to day.
Of course, it is up to the administration to actually implement this
aggressively. Congress has done its work to pass these new programs, to
pass this legislation. Now it shifts over to the executive branch to
administer it. There is no excuse that the funding is not there because
we were able to provide this funding. It is an exception to a normal
CR, but we got the $37 million of funding in to begin to get these
programs up and running so we can begin to turn the tide on this
addiction epidemic.
There are some aspects of the legislation that are already working
that don't require a new program or setting up a new program. For
instance, nurse practitioners and physician's assistants are now
permitted to be involved in administering Suboxone at treatment clinics
around the country. We should get that up and going now. That shouldn't
require a lot of time, effort, and new programs.
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to visit a fire station in
Norwood, OH. This is a community of about 19,000 people that has had 56
overdoses since June 1. That is one small town in Ohio with 56
overdoses just since this summer. I met with law enforcement, I met
with firefighters, and I met with other first responders. I met with a
treatment specialist they brought in to help and work with them. They
are doing some very interesting intervention work with families. They
showed me a video of a young man who was overdosing. They showed me a
video of police officers and then firefighters administering Narcan--
not once, not twice, but three times. They showed how he was brought
back to life. It was tough to watch, but firefighters and other first
responders, police officers, see that every single day.
Every 3 hours someone dies of an overdose in Ohio, but every 3 hours
many more are saved by the administering of naloxone and Narcan to
bring them back to life. As they are doing in Norwood, OH, the key is
to intervene with that person, their family, and their friends and get
that person into treatment so first responders are not administering
Narcan again the next week or sometimes even the next day.
Over the last 4 years, the number of heroin overdoses has tripled.
Let me repeat that. Over the last 4 years, the number of heroin
overdoses has tripled. Sadly, there is reason to believe this trend is
continuing.
Even though our first responders save the vast majority of those who
overdose in Ohio, in Ohio we are losing more lives every day. We have
already
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had more drug overdoses and more drug overdose deaths this year, at the
end of September, than we had all of last year.
Of course, the numbers don't really tell the story. This story is
about people. It is about dreams that have been shattered. It is about
lives that have been cut short, often lives that are promising and
young. It is about people like the 25-year-old student who was found
dead of a heroin overdose in a bathroom stall at Columbus State
University last week--25 years old, with his whole life ahead of him.
It is about people like the Hess family of Crestline, OH. Their son
Jason was a college student, a talented musician, a gifted athlete. One
of his classmates got him to try heroin, to just try it. Almost
immediately the drugs became everything in Jason's life. Jason's dad
said: ``He liked his dealer more than he liked me.''
I have met with several hundred addicts or recovering addicts in Ohio
over the last few years. Many of them tell me the same thing, which is
that the drugs do become everything, so they become everything ahead of
friends and family and work.
Jason struggled with his addiction for 15 years. He was in and out of
jail a lot and in and out of hospitals. In the past 2 months, his dad
saved his life twice with naloxone because as family members they are
now permitted to get Narcan over the counter.
A few weeks ago, Jason died of an overdose. He was 35 years old. When
his mother heard the death notice a few hours later--she was informed
about it--she went to a cemetery with a bottle of Valium and committed
suicide. It was her 60th birthday. In a note she left behind, she said:
``Thanks, heroin. Another victim.'' That was the note she left for all
of us.
With this crisis getting worse and taking such a toll in Ohio, we
have to get this legislation implemented as soon as possible and we
have to continue to fight, not just for more funding but for better
ideas and ways to address this problem at every level and in a
comprehensive way.
We need support for safe disposal sites for prescription drugs. That
is part of the legislation. When you are at the drugstore or at the
pharmacy getting your medication, you will also have an opportunity
right there to dispose of some of the medication you may not have used.
I have been to these dropoff sites. I was at one recently at Walgreens
in Toledo, where they are implementing a program to provide these sites
and to provide safe disposal of these drugs so they don't get in the
wrong hands.
The experts tell us that in most families in America, there are drugs
available that can be dangerous. Many times, they are painkiller
prescription drugs that are very addictive. Recently in Marion, OH, an
18-month-old girl was able to get into her parents' Percocet, and she
overdosed. We need these disposal sites to help protect kids like her.
We need CARA's prevention efforts, such as its national awareness
campaign that is making this link I talked about between prescription
drugs and heroin. People need to understand this.
Kelly Clixby of Marion, OH, needed that information. I met her
earlier this year when I visited the Crawford-Marion Board of Alcohol,
Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services, where they are working hard
every day to fight back against this epidemic.
When I visited, the director, Jody Demo-Hodgins, told me that they
are so overwhelmed with patients that ``most of the time, I feel like
I'm drowning.'' They are overwhelmed, but they are doing a great job,
and Kelly is an example.
Kelly was prescribed painkillers. She became addicted to those
painkillers, and, as is the case with many people, when those pills
became too addictive and too expensive, when she couldn't afford them,
she turned to heroin. Heroin is less expensive and more available,
actually, in many cases. Within a year, she had lost her job, her
house, her car, and custody of her five kids. Over the next decade, she
and her husband Randy got a divorce. She was arrested four different
times for shoplifting. She went to jail 19 times. She overdosed.
Paramedics saved her life with naloxone, the Narcan we talked about.
When Kelly was in the grip of this addiction, she didn't even want to
get out of bed in the morning. She felt like she couldn't even get
started on her day. She felt a constant sense of despair.
Kelly's life turned around when her best friend Chrystina died of a
heroin overdose. At that point, she realized she needed to get
treatment. Nine months to the day after paramedics saved her life,
Kelly got clean. With the help of medication--in her case, Vivitrol,
which is medication that actually blocks the craving for the opioid,
and it has worked very well in many cases in Ohio, including in our
drug courts--with the help of Vivitrol and with the compassion of
people at the Marion Area Counseling Center, Kerry has now been sober
for a year and a half. She is back with her husband Randy. She is back
with her kids and her family. She is now a grandmother. She is leading
a 12-step program to help others. She is beating this because she got
treatment.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act will help get more
people into treatment so we can have more success stories like Kelly's.
As I said, we need to raise awareness about how easy it is to become
addicted to these opioids.
I believe that will also help us to be able to push aside the stigma
that is so often associated with addiction. That is one reason people
don't come forward and get treatment. Kelly said the stigma of
addiction kept her from getting help when she needed it. She said:
You feel horrible for stealing because you need to get
high. Then you get high and you feel horrible for getting
high. And then you have to steal again. I feel guilty because
I use, and I use because I feel guilty.
And the stigma kept her from coming forward.
Think about Tera Guest. Tera Guest is from Lorain, OH. She was a
nurse's aide in a nursing home. She had been a good student and a
talented artist. One day she was on her way to work and was hurrying
down some stairs in her apartment building. She slipped, fell, and
broke her ankle. When she went to her doctor, her doctor prescribed her
Percocet and then OxyContin. She became addicted. When the
prescriptions expired, like so many, she turned to heroin.
Her mom Lori--who is a strong advocate on this issue and heads up the
Lorain Community Task Force--found out about Tera's addiction when Tera
was evicted from her apartment and started living out of her car.
Lori felt what so many moms and dads have experienced in Ohio and
across the country. She said that when her kids were young, ``We never
discussed heroin. I never thought it would be part of our lives. You
don't think that it's going to be your child; you don't think that it's
going to be in your family. And when it is, the stigma makes you so
ashamed'' and you don't want to talk about it.
Her daughter Tera fought this addiction for 2 years. At just 24 years
old, she died of an overdose of heroin laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is
this synthetic heroin that is creeping into our communities, this
poison that is coming into our country from other countries,
particularly China and India. It is coming here by the mail system.
For Tera, it started with a broken ankle. It could happen to
anybody. That is why we need this prevention effort--to warn people
about the dangers and to help end the stigma to keep people from hiding
it and to get them to come forward. For all these reasons--the
prevention, the treatment, the recovery, and ending the stigma--the
people we represent need this legislation to be enacted but also to be
implemented as soon as possible.
In order to help as many people as we can, we have to get the funding
in the CR working and we have to continue to fight for funding.
Madam President, we have talked about a lot of tough stories today.
Unfortunately, the grip of this addiction is so great that there are a
lot of heartbreaking stories, and it is getting worse, not better. But
there is also hope. There is hope I see every week when I am back home
in Ohio.
I recently met Sheila Humphrey, whose child succumbed to a heroin
addiction and an overdose and death. She started her own organization
with other moms and family members, and they are having great success
in intervening with these families and explaining the reason to get
treatment and get
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into recovery. She gave me this bracelet. It talks about the Rally for
Recovery in 2016. We had one in Ohio last weekend that I was able to
attend.
At that rally, with the Ohio Citizen Advocates for Addiction
Recovery, I got to meet so many people who are in recovery. They came
forward to talk to me about their stories and to talk about what they
are doing to help others. They talked to me about the need for us to
have more treatments and recovery programs. I met someone who has not
only beaten the addiction but is a counselor in Dayton, OH, named Gary.
Gary Gonnella is helping others to get their lives back on track. He is
incredibly persuasive because he has a story to tell.
Gary told me: Senator, there is hope. Don't give up.
He is telling me don't give up. I am telling my colleagues: People
expect us not to give up. They are not giving up. This guy, Gary, is a
recovering addict. He is not giving up, and he is asking us to ensure
we do everything we can to help--to be a better partner with State and
local governments and with the nonprofits out there in the trenches
every day that are doing this work with folks like Gary who are looking
for our help. CARA will give more people more hope.
So on behalf of all of those whom I talked about today, those whose
lives were cut short, and their family members, and on behalf of our
communities, let's continue this fight. Let's ensure we do, in fact,
get CARA implemented quickly. Let's ensure we do continue to push not
just to provide funding but new ideas and better ideas.
There is new legislation we just introduced in the last couple of
weeks called the STOP Act that stops the synthetic heroin, the
fentanyl, the carfentanil, and U-4 from coming into our country from
other countries by requiring packages include information about where
the package is from, what is in it, and where it is going. That is not
required now by the post office, but it is required by private
carriers. So these traffickers are using the postal system, including
the U.S. postal system, to move these deadly chemicals into our
communities. We need to stop that.
So there is more we can and should do. It is our responsibility to do
that. As we break for these elections and as the lameduck period in
December comes upon us after that, let's continue to work to ensure we
are able to turn this tide and bring back more hope.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
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