WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Senator Jack Reed today praised the passage of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) bill to improve heroin and painkiller addiction treatment and joined with more than 30 colleagues in sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calling for a vote on legislation to provide substantial funding to combat opioid abuse.

The bipartisan Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), authorizes, but provides no new funding for, programs to address the prescription opioid and heroin crisis.

Reed, Whitehouse, and 34 of their Senate colleagues wrote that in order for the CARA bill to work, Congress must appropriate “real dollars needed to deliver life-saving prevention and treatment services. 

“Congress needs to take urgent action to address this crisis and save lives.  Passing CARA is important but now we have a situation where there is authority, but no funds.  And I believe we need both.  It is critical that we provide real resources to confront this epidemic and to ensure that people have access to the treatments they need,” said Reed.  “I commend Senator Whitehouse for his leadership to get CARA to the President’s desk and I will continue working with my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to deliver additional funding to help communities in Rhode Island and nationwide reduce abuse of opioids and prescription drugs.  We need to improve addiction recovery outcomes and ensure people who need help have access to life saving treatments.  No community is immune to this problem and we have to overcome barriers to treatment." 

Earlier this year, Senator Reed, a member of the Appropriations Committee, backed an amendment to provide $600 million in an emergency supplemental to help counter the prescription opioid and heroin epidemic.  However, Republicans blocked that effort.

In the United States, drug overdoses have exceeded car crashes as the number one cause of injury death.  Two Americans die of drug overdoses every hour.  In Rhode Island, there were more than 230 opioid overdose deaths in 2014.

The letter was also signed by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Patty Murray (D-WA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Tom Carper (D-DE), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Bernard Sanders (I-VT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Jon Tester (D-MT), Mark Warner (D-VA), Michael F. Bennet (D-CO), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Al Franken (D-MN), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chris Coons (D-DE), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angus King (I-ME), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Ed Markey (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Gary Peters (D-MI).

The text of the letter follows:

July 13, 2016

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington DC 20510                                                  

Dear Leader McConnell:

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) holds great promise for the fight against opioid use disorders.  However, that promise -- to realize its potential to help families coping with the devastating toll of this epidemic – can only be realized with real dollars needed to deliver life-saving prevention and treatment services. Until then, the job is not done. We urge you to finish the job by committing real, immediate funding to actually tackle this epidemic head-on.

Fortunately, legislation to accomplish this critical task is ready and available for consideration. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s emergency supplemental legislation would commit $600 million in funding to address the crisis right now. Similar language received bipartisan support in the Senate when we debated CARA earlier this year. While the Shaheen legislation followed the Senate’s tradition of not offsetting emergency funding, the conference committee also rejected $920 million for addiction treatment, consistent with the President’s budget request, which was fully offset with bipartisan proposals. With the opioid epidemic crippling communities around the country, every day that counsellors and treatment centers do not have the resources to help those fighting opioid use disorders is a day lost. We hope that you will schedule a vote on legislation that provides substantial funding to address the opioid and heroin epidemic as soon as possible.

It is also imperative that we take on the opioid epidemic without undermining work in other areas critical to public health. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill contains a $457 million increase in funding for heroin and opioid prevention and treatment, it also makes unacceptable cuts to important accounts elsewhere. The same Americans who suffer from opioid use disorders may also need access to birth control; they may also need mammograms to detect early onset breast cancer; and they may also need health insurance through the private insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, House Republican appropriators zeroed out funding for accounts or eliminated provisions dedicated to these purposes.

We owe all Americans a strong response to the opioid crisis that shows we can work together and eschew extreme partisan goals or political games. That means providing real dollars immediately, strengthening other public health priorities, and staying away from poison pill riders. The American people have called on the Senate to do its job and pass emergency funding for opioid use disorder prevention and treatment services. We stand ready to act when you are.