Opioid Prescription Verification Act of 2021

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2355, the Opioid Prescription Verification Act, a bill led by Representative Rodney Davis along with Representatives Bilirakis and Wagner.

The opioid epidemic continues to devastate communities across the country. According to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, there were over 100,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States from April 2020 to April 2021. That is a 28.5 percent increase from the previous year.

The Opioid Prescription Verification Act directs Federal agencies to develop, disseminate, and periodically update training materials to help pharmacists identify and report potential cases of bad actors who attempt to buy and sell controlled substances for illicit use.

The bill also incentivizes States to utilize prescription drug monitoring programs and requires certain controlled substances to be prescribed electronically. Additionally, this bill includes data entry requirements that help reduce the potential diversion of prescription drugs.

This bill will help stop criminals who perpetuate the vicious cycle of addiction. It is a crucial step toward ending the opioid epidemic and making our communities safer.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky, the Speaker pro tempore from Kentucky, and also my good friend from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for their work. I would like to thank Mr. Pallone and Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers for allowing this piece of legislation to come to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 2355, the Opioid Prescription Verification Act of 2021. As my good friend Mr. Bilirakis just said a few minutes ago, this bill builds on the successes in the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act that was signed into law by President Trump in 2018. Our bill adds to this success by incentivizing electronic prescribing of opioids.

This bill also encourages the full use of States' existing prescription drug monitoring programs to help facilitate informed and responsible dispensing of controlled substances.

My bill will ultimately help doctors and pharmacists track the prescriptions a patient has received and ensure they cannot be altered or copied and used multiple times in an illicit manner. This will help reduce prescription shopping and curb illegal sales that result in unprescribed use of opioids, which have tragically led to millions of overdose deaths.

This idea actually came from a meeting I had with local law enforcement in the Bloomington-Normal area in central Illinois. I have to thank Chief Bleichner and also Sergeant Kapchinske for coming up with the idea because they had to track down some illicit opioid pill shoppers in their communities. By the time they figured out this group was shopping for opioid pills, the criminals were able to secure over 300 pills that would have been sold on the black market and could have added to our death tolls.

The dramatic increase in overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic has also shown that we must be doing more to prevent opioid abuse. The Opioid Prescription Verification Act is an important tool in our fight against the opioid epidemic.

The original concept of this bill was to encourage States to implement protocols for opioid prescriptions similar to the federally mandated ID check on Sudafed-type drugs that has been in Federal law since 2005 because they can simply be used to illegally manufacture deadly methamphetamines.

While I believe a Federal mandate for manual checks for opioids would stop a significant number of bad actors, expanded use of e-prescribing will be an important and effective tool to combat the abuse.

I thank, again, Chairman Pallone, Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers, and also Ranking Member Guthrie; my good friend Mr. Bilirakis; and also Congresswoman Wagner for helping move this bill and finding this good, principled compromise today. I also encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, our beloved home State has areas that have been really affected by the opioid epidemic. We also know that our colleagues back home who serve in our general assembly have spent an enormous amount of time trying to get verification through prescription programs and other programs moving forward.

There is so much to do and so much we need to do through treatment and through other methods, but this is an important tool that will help our pharmacists realize when people are going around trying to get different prescriptions.

I strongly support this bill and thank my friends for working on this: Representatives Davis, Bilirakis, and Wagner. I yield back the balance of my time.

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