Pubdate: Thu, 04 Feb 2016
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2016 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376

HELPING DRUG ADDICTS IS FINALLY POLITICALLY FEASIBLE

Obama Wants $1.1 Billion From Congress Over Two Years to Boost Treatment

Congress Is Considering Another Measure to Help Addicts Recover

Either Way, With New Demands From Voters, Action Is Welcome

When there's the political will, there tends to be a political way to 
accomplish the impossible. It appears this finally may be the case 
with the nation's long-ignored epidemic of heroin and prescription 
opioid addiction.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration unveiled a plan to ramp up 
spending on drug treatment and prevention, which is woefully 
inadequate in most states, and to expand patient access to the 
overdose-reversal drug, naloxone, and to other drugs proven to curb addiction.

Nationwide, about 2.2 million people need treatment for opioid abuse, 
according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but 
about only 1 million manage to get it.

To change this, the president intends to ask Congress for a fiscal 
year investment of $1.1 billion over two years  a budget request 
that, in normal times, would be an exercise in futility. But this is 
a politically charged election year that's anything but normal.

The New Hampshire primary is coming up, and New Hampshire is a state 
that has been particularly ravaged by drugs. It has one of the 
highest rates of fatal opioid overdoses in the country.

That means a whole lot of voters in New Hampshire want to talk about 
drug addiction. They want to know what the men and women running for 
president can do to help. They want to know what those in Congress 
can do about it, too  and for good reason.

More Americans die from drug overdoses now than from car crashes. In 
2014, that was about 47,000 people. Most took opioid painkillers 
prescribed by a doctor; many others died from heroin, the cheaper alternative.

New Hampshire may have the dubious distinction of being the poster 
child for this epidemic, but the same drugs have taken hold of 
communities across the country, including thousands of rural and 
suburban enclaves in California.

The number of drug overdoses recently hit a new high here, with about 
4,500 Californians dying in 2014 compared with about 1,500 in 2002 
again, the vast majority from opioids. More than twice as many 
Californians die from drug overdoses than are murdered.

For this reason, because of the pressure from voters and the timing 
of the election, the Obama administration could get a lot of what it 
wants from Congress to combat opioid addiction.

If not, lawmakers may go to one of the other bipartisan solutions on 
the table. Among them is a bill from Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called 
the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. It's set to go before 
the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

One could lament that the Obama administration and Congress are 
acting now more because it's politically expedient than because it's 
the right thing to do for millions of Americans. While that's 
obviously true and while it's a shame, in the end, we don't really care.

More than the politics of why, what matters is that we're facing an 
emergency with this seemingly unstoppable epidemic of lethal drug 
addiction. What matters is that something gets done.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom