Opioid Epidemic

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in 2017, more than 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, and 49,000 of those deaths were related to opioids. Opioid overdoses have surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. Whole communities have been devastated by the opioid epidemic. The situation is rightly described as a crisis.

Here in Congress we are focused on doing everything we can to support the fight against substance use disorder. In 2016, we passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which authorized a variety of grants to States to boost their efforts to reduce opioid deaths and help individuals overcome opioid addiction. That same year, we also passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which provided $1 billion in State grants over 2 years to combat the opioid epidemic.

In March of this year, Congress passed an appropriations bill that provided $4.7 billion to address the opioid crisis. Today, we voted on an appropriations bill that will provide another $3.8 billion to fight this epidemic. Overall, Federal funding to address the opioid crisis has increased by nearly 1,300 percent over the past 4 years.

Then there is the bill we passed last night. The Opioid Crisis Response Act, which passed the Senate yesterday evening, is the product of months of work by five Senate committees. It contains more than 70 proposals from Senators of both parties and represents the serious efforts Congress has made to address opioid addiction on a number of fronts.

This legislation will support critical treatment and recovery efforts. It will help babies born in opioid withdrawal. It will help support family-focused residential treatment programs, and more. Just as importantly, it will also take steps to address what I see as the supply side of the opioid epidemic. It will help stop the movement of illegal drugs across our borders through the mail--the work of the Senator from Ohio, Rob Portman. It will promote research into and fast- track approval of new nonaddictive pain management alternatives. It will help stop the practice of ``doctor shopping'' by improving State prescription drug monitoring programs.

The bill also provides grants for law enforcement agencies to help protect law enforcement officers from accidental exposure to deadly drugs in the course of their duties.

I am proud that this legislation includes a bill that I introduced, the Expanding Telehealth Response to Ensure Addiction Treatment Act, which will help expand access to substance use disorder treatment for Medicare recipients by using telehealth technology.

The Opioid Crisis Response Act also includes my legislation to close a safety gap in railroad drug and alcohol testing regulations and require the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Transportation to include fentanyl in the drug-testing panel.

Opioid addiction destroys lives, not just the lives of the addicted but the lives of their children, their parents, their siblings, their spouses, their relatives and friends. The Opioid Crisis Response Act and the funding that we passed today will help move us forward in the fight against this deadly epidemic. We will continue to make combating opioid addiction a top priority here in the Congress.

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