Some Advocacy Groups Say House Opioid Abuse Bill Doesn’t Focus Enough on Recovery

Some addiction recovery groups say a U.S. House bill, the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Reduction Act, does not focus enough on recovery, The Huffington Post reports. The groups say the House measure, to be introduced Wednesday, is weaker than the Senate version of the bill.

In March, the U.S. Senate voted 94-1 to pass the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA). The measure authorizes funds for various drug treatment and prevention programs for a wide range of people, including those in jail.

CARA expands prescription drug take-back programs and establishes monitoring to prevent over-prescribing of opioid painkillers. It expands the availability of medication-assisted treatment, including in criminal justice settings, and supports treatment as an alternative to incarceration. The measure also calls for training and equipping first responders on the use of naloxone.

Groups including Faces & Voices of Recovery and the Harm Reduction Coalition are opposing the House measure. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee’s leaders, the Harm Reduction Coalition wrote, “Most notably, the [bill] omits vital provisions in CARA addressing recovery, collateral consequences, and prevention and education.”

The Senate bill, crafted over three years, included input from recovery groups, law enforcement, prosecutors and public health organizations. The House has been working much more quickly to write its own measure, and has not had time to get the same amount of input, the article notes.

The House measure emphasizes law enforcement, according to the article. Public health and other groups would be allowed to compete for grants. The Senate bill requires that significant amounts of funding go toward recovery and other public health efforts.

Last week a bipartisan group of House members presented 15 bills aimed at fighting opioid addiction. These measures were a prelude to the unveiling of the larger House bill, the article notes.