Opioid Epidemic

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I would like to talk a little bit on the floor about an issue that is cascading across the country and is deeply troubling in the State of West Virginia, the region in which I live, and that is the opioid crisis we are seeing.

Many of you have recently read about what has happened in the city of Huntington, WV. Huntington is a beautiful city. It sits right on the Ohio River at the corner of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. It is the home of the Thundering Herd of Marshall University. However, 1 month ago today, on Monday, August 15, in just a 4-hour period, this small city of Huntington was the site of 28 overdoses. Responding to this mass overdose occupied all of the ambulances in the city and more than a shift's worth of the police officers in Huntington.

Of the 28 people affected, 26 were revived using naloxone, a lifesaving drug that helps reverse overdoses. However, the heroin they had used was likely laced with a substance so potent that the ordinary dose of naloxone was not enough. Responders had to use two and sometimes three doses of naloxone to bring people back to life and out of the overdose.

Rashes of overdoses due to particularly strong batches of heroin have been happening more and more frequently. This is heroin that is likely laced with fentanyl or a new product we have heard about--a synthetic product--called carfentanil, which is a drug used to sedate elephants and other large animals that is 100 times as potent as fentanyl. Apparently, this is happening much too frequently.

Versions of this chaotic scene are happening day after day in big cities and small towns in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Florida. The region and area of my friend Senator Portman, the State of Ohio and Cincinnati, probably 2 or 3 days after this occurred in Huntington had the same thing occur but much larger.

What makes the recent spate of overdoses in Huntington so noteworthy is that Huntington is a city that knows it has a problem and is doing all the right things to fight it. Under the mayor's guidance, they have really worked hard to put together a great consortium, which began in 2014, to fight this scourge on their town. The mayor started the office of drug control policy. They have staffed the office with people who have intimate knowledge of the problem.

They are not hiding their head in the sand. They are not saying it is something else. They know what this problem is, and they are trying to hit it face on. In staffing the office, they have a former police chief, a fire department captain who is also a registered nurse and works at the hospital, and a police department criminal intelligence analyst. They have created a strategic plan which focuses on three general principles: prevention, treatment, and law enforcement.

The plan embraces harm reduction strategies, including weekly training for citizens on how to use naloxone. I actually went to a naloxone training seminar myself, just to see. If you are trained on it properly, it can make the difference. It can make the difference in preventing people from inflicting irreversible damage to themselves and others.

Huntington has expanded their adult drug court and recently received a grant to launch the Women's Empowerment and Addiction Recovery Program--a specialized track within the drug court that will expand services to address the needs of drug-addicted prostitutes. Even in the face of the overdose, they are making progress. In fact, the cooperation among local agencies--and the sad reality that they are well-practiced and well-trained--can also be accredited with the 26 lives they have saved.

While the overdose rate in Huntington has remained steadily high, the number of deaths from overdose has fallen, and that is an encouraging sign. Jim Johnson, who is the director of the Huntington Mayor's Office of Drug Control Policy has said:

What we are seeing around the country is overdose deaths going up--[especially] with the rise of fentanyl and . . . [other substances]. It's not good that our [Huntington] overdose rate is holding--but compared to others having real increases--it's encouraging. And we are happy the death rate is down.

As I have heard from West Virginians and read in local and national news accounts about this rash of overdoses, I think: What have we done and what do we need to do to help cities all across this Nation?

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, or CARA, marked a big first step forward. It reflects some of the best practices we have seen in places like Huntington. It includes reforms to help law enforcement respond to this epidemic, such as the successful drug court programs that operate in West Virginia and in many other States.

It expands the availability of naloxone and allows funds to be used for followup services for those who receive another chance at life. When somebody comes into the emergency room in an overdose situation, is administered naloxone, and 1 or 2 hours later gets up and just walks out the door, we haven't really followed through on our public health obligation.

In this bill, we have followup services so that person can be followed by a home visit or a home phone call to see what their situation might be.

I proudly voted for CARA, as most of us did, and believe it is an excellent first step, but that is exactly what it is--a first step. Now we must take a fresh look at this epidemic--an epidemic that, to me, is threatening to take an entire generation, this next generation of our best and brightest.

We must look at ways to stop the drugs from getting to our communities. One solution is the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, or STOP Act, which was recently introduced by Senators Portman, Ayotte, and Johnson.

The STOP Act, of which I recently became a cosponsor, is designed to stop dangerous synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and carfentanil from being shipped through our borders and addresses any gaps in our mail security.

Earlier this year, I announced that the DEA had established a tactical diversion squad in Clarksburg, WV. It probably doesn't sound like much but it will be a big help to enhancing our law enforcement efforts to stay one step ahead of this influx of drugs.

Programs like the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, known as HIDTA, are critical in helping to coordinate initiatives that reduce drug use and abuse in communities. We must embrace and intensify prevention strategies in our schools, community centers, and our afterschool programs.

Our youth cannot think that this epidemic is acceptable or that it is the new normal. We must ensure that when someone decides they want treatment for their drug use, they have access to this treatment. There are no lists of people to admit into incarceration. There is no waiting list here. Yet there is a waiting list for our drug treatment and prevention centers.

September is National Alcohol Addiction and Recovery Month, and today Senator Murphy of Connecticut and I are offering a resolution which honors the significant achievements of those citizens who are now in recovery. The resolution also recognizes the nationwide need for increased access to treatment.

This is an area where there is so much more work to do. We must have the detox beds available and the workforce trained and ready to assist those seeking treatment. We also want to make sure we have a range of treatment options available. This is definitely not a one-size-fits-all problem. Each addict found their way to addiction in a different way, and each must figure their own path out, whether through inpatient rehab, peer-to-peer rehab, medication-assisted therapy, a 12-step program, or, most likely, a combination of these and other options.

It is also essential that we remember that recovery does not end when an addict finishes treatment. Services need to be available to assist with their transition back into society.

We must look at the collateral effects substance abuse has on our communities, whether it is through increased violent crime, child neglect and abuse, or disease, especially hepatitis and HIV, given the rise in heroin use.

Are there immediate solutions for all of these problems? No, we have found there aren't. But, like the city of Huntington, we must continue to come to terms with the extent of the problem in order to know what solutions do make sense, and, like Huntington, progress is going to be incremental and it will take time. We can begin to tackle some of the problems through commonsense changes and policies.

One example is Jesse's Law, a bill named after a West Virginian. She was a daughter, a sister, and an addict in recovery. Following surgery from a running injury, despite her best efforts and those of her family, Jesse was discharged from the hospital--she had told the hospital she had addiction issues--she was discharged from the hospital with a prescription for 50 oxycodone pills and fatally overdosed later that evening. By amending the privacy regulations for persons with substance abuse disorders, we can ensure that those individuals receive the safe, effective, and coordinated care they need to prevent other tragedies like Jesse's and her family's from occurring.

I recognize that these problems are also going to take additional funding. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, along with the Presiding Officer, I will work to ensure that these resources are going to programs that best meet a State's needs, whether it is HIDTA, the DOD's counterdrug program, or substance abuse grants. In the fiscal year 2017 Labor-HHS appropriations bill, there is a $126 million increase for programs fighting opioid abuse. In bills passed by the committee, funding to address heroin opioid abuse is more than double last year's levels. However, I also know this problem cannot be solved by simply throwing money at it.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to develop additional policies to tackle these problems. We must consider all options. The outcomes are sad. I mean, I personally know families who have been affected by this. I think everybody does. If you are in a townhall meeting and you ask for a show of hands from those who have a story or know somebody from their church or their children's friends, almost every hand in the meeting will go up.

We need to work with State and local officials to learn what is working and what is not.

I will also keep fighting for an additional issue, a side issue that is just as important, which is veterans who rely on the VA programs to help with their opioid addiction, or that newborn who is born dependent on opioids, or the addict who is willing to seek treatment, and any other person because practically every person in this country is touched by this disease.

I will keep fighting for cities like Huntington that even in their darkest hours continue to move forward and fight every day toward a brighter drug-free future.

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