Both of Connecticut’s U.S. Senators spoke on the Senate floor this week urging support for legislation they say can help the nation combat the rise of opioid and heroin abuse.Senator Richard Blumenthal took to the floor Tuesday in support of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. The overall bill has bipartisan support and is intended to improve prescription drug monitoring, treat incarcerated people for addiction and increase the availability of overdose reversal drug naloxone.
“Which the Senate will consider and I hope approve this week,” Blumenthal said. “It is a long overdue measure to address the public health hurricane. A crisis that we face in this country every bit as real and threatening as threats from abroad.”
In 2015, there were 417 heroin-related deaths in Connecticut, according to statistics recently released by the state’s chief medical examiner. In 2014, that number was 327. Blumenthal sponsored a provision of CARA that would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants greater access to drug monitoring data.
“Although nurse practitioners and physician assistants wrote over 7 million opioid prescriptions in 2013, few states permit them to consult and submit prescribing data to these important state databases,” said Blumenthal.
Minutes later, fellow Democratic Senator Chris Murphy urged passage of The Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Treatment Act. Its lead sponsors in the Senate are Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Kentucky Republican and one-time presidential hopeful Rand Paul. The bill is in the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee of which Murphy is a member.
“There is a limit on the number of patients that providers can prescribe buprenorphine to, which is the most effective, least addictive of the heroin substitutes,” Murphy said. “As a physician you can only take 100 clients to prescribe this drug. And if you’re a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner you’re not allowed to prescribe. In Connecticut, that’s the biggest obstacle we have. We just don’t have enough physicians who can prescribe this very effective drug.”
The TREAT Act would lift that patient cap for physicians while allowing nurses with certain levels of training and physician assistants to prescribe the drug. Murphy says the TREAT Act may have more impact on its own than CARA.
“The CARA bill is really important, but let’s be honest there’s no money in it,” Murphy said. “So there’s a bunch of new programs, but no new resources for us in Connecticut to try to take on this fight. If we were to pass the TREAT Act next week in the health committee and move it to the floor that would be real tangible relief for communities in Connecticut. It would mean more addicts coming out of detox would have access to true elements of recovery.”
The TREAT Act doesn’t have money attached to it either. To Murphy’s point, CARA does not fund the $725 million in programs and grants it authorizes. Democrats and the White House are balking at a refusal by Republicans to include funding, as explained by Blumenthal.
“As important as this bill is I agree with many of my colleagues, and they’ve spoken on the floor, that it is far less effective than it could be without the $600 million supplemental appropriation that I have advocated, urged, sought and fought to pass,” Blumenthal said. “I’m disappointed that Senator [Jeanne] Shaheen’s amendment, which I spearheaded and co-sponsored, was not included in this measure. I will look forward and continue to fight for the resources that are necessary to make this fight real.”
Still in support of the legislation, Republicans say a spending bill passed in December appropriated $400 million for these types of programs. A final vote on the legislation is expected later this week.
