Substance Use-Disorder Prevention That Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I come to the floor to thank my colleagues for working so hard on this very important legislation we are going to pass tonight to deal with the opioid crisis.

From Port Angeles to Spokane, I guarantee my colleagues that I have heard about this problem, I have seen how our communities are struggling, and this is the very help that they have been asking for. They want new tools, they want better solutions, and they want us to join the fight against drug manufacturers who push these drugs out to communities when they should be following a process and reporting so that our law enforcement can cut down on the huge amounts of opioids streaming into our communities.

This legislation does many things, and I am glad that it does. The STOP Act will help crack down on shipments of fentanyl into the United States via the U.S. mail, which is something that is very important that we do, and I thank my colleague from Ohio for that.

It authorizes funding for a new grant program to help train law enforcement and protect them against the deadliest opioids, like fentanyl, because their exposure to it has been so unbelievable and it is a risk to them every day they are out there doing their job.

This bill reauthorizes the drug courts program, which many people in the State of Washington have told me has been beneficial to how they deal with this crisis as it relates to the individuals in their States, helping nonviolent offenders recover and helping them move forward.

It reauthorizes the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, which uses Federal resources to help local law enforcement crack down on illicit drug rings. We need to help law enforcement, which is dealing with this problem every single day, to have the tools to do this job. The fact that it reauthorizes the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program is just the kind of tool they need.

This bill also makes permanent the ability for doctors to treat up to 275 patients with the kind of treatment that is necessary for them, which also helps us to get to people faster and to get them into a recovery situation faster.

One thing I really want to draw attention to is this issue of hearing over and over about how opioid manufacturers have flooded our communities with a product when, in reality, current law says they are supposed to monitor and track the distribution of this drug. Well, in too many cases, those safeguards have not been followed. Throughout their process, they weren't reporting on suspicious orders of opioids that prevents them from ending up in the wrong hands, and in some instances, they ended up in the hands of a black market, which then continued to flood communities with the product.

In one example, a physician in Everett, Washington, wrote more than 10,000 prescriptions of opioids. This number of prescriptions was 26 times higher than the average prescriber in Everett, Washington. So he wrote 26 times more opioid prescriptions than the average provider. However, the drug manufacturer failed to report this suspicious activity.

When we authorized this drug, we said this process is what has to happen. Because of its highly addictive nature, it has to be tracked. Law enforcement has to keep track of and be advised of anything that looks like suspicious activity. This abnormally high number was a clear red flag that should have been reported. Instead, the opioid manufacturer turned a blind eye to the negligent distribution.

In response to those abuses, people in my State and in many other States have been critical and have filed lawsuits because they have been so concerned about this issue. What is clear, though, is that we need to do something now to make sure that opioid manufacturers follow the law that is already on the books about the reporting of suspicious distribution or volumes of distributions that are suspicious. Today, this legislation takes a major step forward on that front by including penalties for negligent opioid distribution strong enough to serve as a deterrent to those manufacturers against the actions we have seen in the past.

The bipartisan Opioid Crisis Response Act includes provisions from legislation that I and Senator Harris from California authored. Our provisions increase the civil and criminal penalties on companies that fail to take responsible measures to prevent their drugs from entering the black market.

Our legislation increases the civil penalties by 10 times, from $10,000 to $100,000 per violation. That adds up very quickly in what we think have been transactions that have been very suspicious. In addition, the bill increases the maximum criminal penalty to $500,000 for companies that willfully disregard and/or knowingly fail to keep proper reporting on these distribution activities.

Again, this is what we put into the law because of the highly addictive nature of these drugs. We said that they have to be monitored and their distribution has to be monitored because prior to today the slap on the wrist was not enough of a deterrent, and most of those requirements were ignored. Today, we are putting a much more stringent requirement in the law to say that they will get serious fines if they don't follow the law.

This is such an important issue that a bipartisan group of 39 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of this effort. Our own attorney general, Bob Ferguson, helped in promoting that effort, and I want to thank him. The state attorneys general said:

Diversion of prescription opioids has devastated communities in our states. The consequences for turning a blind eye to suspicious opioid orders cannot merely be a cost of doing business. We urge you to support . . . the CARES Act to ensure that penalties effectively hold manufacturers accountable and help stem diversion.

So I agree with those state attorneys general, and I am so glad this is included in this legislation. Creating a more serious attitude toward the illegal distribution of this product and its falling into the hands of black markets is so serious. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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