Rep. Kaptur Hails Passage of Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act

Press Release

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-9) today praised the passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of the Conference Report on S. 524, Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2015. Rep. Kaptur was a major booster of CARA, which establishes a comprehensive, coordinated and balanced strategy through enhanced grant programs that would expand prevention and education efforts while also promoting treatment and recovery. The bill creates a number of new locally-based initiatives that will be the subject of future funding debates in an era of limited resources.

The compromise CARA proposal was approved by the House on 407-5 vote. The measure will have to be approved by the Senate before it can be sent to President Barack Obama's desk for final approval.

"This is a public health crisis that has affected every community in northern Ohio," said Kaptur, a member of the House Heroin Task Force who has been active on building support in the House for a comprehensive measure. "It has affected families across the economic and social spectrum. No neighborhood or community has escaped this scourge, and now that concentrated synthetic fentanyl is widely available, this is an epidemic like no other."

Passage of the House version of the compromise agreement comes a month after Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Thomas Gilson reported a record 45 fatal overdoses attributed to either heroin or fentanyl occurred in the month of May. The total was the highest of any month in 2016, putting the county on track to have roughly 500 people die from the drugs, twice the 2015 overdose numbers. On Wednesday, Akron saw 17 suspected heroin overdoses in that one day, caused in several cases by the powerful painkiller fentanyl.

In Toledo there were 215 heroin- and opioid-related deaths in 2015 in the 19 northwest Ohio counties and Branch and Hillsdale counties in Michigan for which the Lucas County Coroner's Office performs autopsies. In 2016 the overdose death rate is up about 15 percent, with a projected annual death rate of roughly 250 heroin- and opioid-related deaths by the end of 2016. Lucas County experienced 133 heroin-related overdose deaths in 2015, with some 30 from fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate that is more potent than heroin or morphine. Fentanyl-related deaths have skyrocketed in the last year locally, according to Dr. Robert Forney, Lucas County's chief toxicologist.

Based on her experience as the dean of the Ohio congressional delegation, Kaptur qualified her praise for the measure, however, based on its lack of guarantee of future funding.

"While this is progress it fails to include emergency funds," Kaptur continued, "whether this Congress or future ones have the will and determination to put their money where their mouth is left unanswered."

The final stages of the legislative negotiations on the CARA package were not without major disagreements in funding priorities. The Conference Committee version of CARA left funding for some important priorities at risk, and instead of protecting important treatment and prevention programs, the Conference bill rolls funding for these programs into a single block grant program in a way that threatens funding for each individual initiative. Essentially, it pits one priority against another to be decided by individual State governors and their appointees. House Democrats had attempted to add $920 million to assure funding availability, but were rebuffed by House Republicans.

CARA would, among other things:

expand the availability of naloxone (narcan) to law enforcement agencies and other first responders to help in the reversal of overdoses to save lives;

direct the to convene a Pain Management Best Practice Inter-Agency taskforce to develop both best practices for pain management and prescribing pain medication and a strategy for dissemination;

launch an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program to expand best practices throughout the country;

expand resources to identify and treat incarcerated individuals suffering from addiction disorders promptly by collaborating with criminal justice stakeholders and by providing evidence-based treatment;

expand disposal sites for unwanted prescription medications to keep them out of the hands of our children and adolescents;

require the FDA to issue final guidance for generic drugs that claim abuse deterrence within 18 months of when the measure becomes law; and

strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs to help states monitor and track prescription drug diversion and to help at-risk individuals access services.

In another development, Rep. Kaptur also praised the announcement by the Obama Administration and HHS on Wednesday to expand access and availability to effective medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid addiction. HHS will now increase the number of patients a qualified health care provider can treat using MAT from 100 patients to 275 patients.

"Given the overwhelming demand for treatment at all levels, this change in regulation is most welcome news," said Kaptur.

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