Bill Designed to Fight Drug Addiction is Focus of Republican Weekly Address

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) will “make a real difference for families and communities” struggling with drug addiction, U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said Saturday. He spoke about the bill, which has bipartisan support, in the Republican Weekly Address.

“This epidemic does not discriminate,” Senator Portman said. “Zip codes don’t matter. It’s affecting our cities, suburban areas, and rural counties. Young or old, rich, middle class or poor, black, white, Hispanic or Asian. The grip of addiction affects all of us.”

According to Portman, the bill targets prevention and education resources and also provides more funding for evidence-based treatment and recovery programs, CBS News reports. The measure would expand prescription drug take-back programs and establish monitoring to prevent over-prescriptions of opioid painkillers.

“There is an urgency to this issue,” he said. “Congress must act now to help repair our communities, our families and our country.”

Last week, legislators and officials testified at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the need for more funding and stronger measures to fight opioid addiction. They called for greater access to addiction treatment and more stringent rules for painkiller prescribing.

Speakers at the hearing included governors, U.S. senators and law enforcement officials. They said heroin and painkiller addiction is overwhelming health care workers, police and families across the nation.

In 2014, more than 47,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I have never seen anything like this, in terms of the epidemic we are facing,” New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte told the hearing. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, also from New Hampshire, called the problem a pandemic that affects “young and old, urban and rural, rich and poor, whites and minorities.”

The hearing was called in part to discuss CARA.