{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://susanwbrooks.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/recovery-law-mired-in-funding-quagmire", "Recovery law mired in funding quagmire", "2016-12-04", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "IN", "Susan Brooks", "B001284", "susanwbrooks.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "When Susan Brooks was the\u00a0U.S. district attorney for southern Indiana in the early 2000s,\u00a0she prosecuted an Indianapolis doctor for overprescribing the painkiller\u00a0oxycodone\u00a0and an Evansville resident for injecting his ex-wife with a fatal dose of the same drug. \n\n\u201cUnless we do a lot more education about the problem, we\u2019re going to see a lot more deaths,\u201d Brooks\u00a0told the Evansville Courier and Press in 2004.\nThat year, 98 Indiana residents died from opioid overdoses, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. Over the next 10 years, more than 2,000 Hoosiers died from overdoses of opioids, a family of pain-relief drugs including\u00a0fentanyl,\u00a0heroin,\u00a0hydrocodone,\u00a0methadone\u00a0and\u00a0morphine.\nMore recently, Scott County attracted national attention because of an HIV outbreak linked to the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users. Their drug of choice was the prescription pain reliever\u00a0oxymorphone.\nBrooks today is a Republican member of the U.S. House from Carmel, fresh off election to her\u00a0third term representing central Indiana\u2019s 5th District. This year, she and nearly every other member of Congress voted in favor of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law July 22.\nThree years in the making, CARA aims to curb prescription opioid abuse and heroin use through prevention, treatment, recovery, education and law enforcement efforts. Lawmakers and advocates hailed it as an historic approach that regards drug addiction as a\u00a0public health crisis rather than criminal activity.\n\u201cI think what we\u2019ve learned over the decades is we cannot arrest our way out of this epidemic of addictions,\u201d Brooks, who grew up in Fort Wayne, said in a recent phone interview. \u201cWe have to remove the stigma of the addiction, allow families and people to seek help without being afraid of the stigma of having this kind of addiction.\u201d\nWhen CARA is up and running, it is supposed to\u00a0provide\u00a0grants for communities to address drug crises, develop treatment alternatives to jail sentences, receive training in the use of the overdose-reversal drug naloxone and create disposal sites for unwanted prescription medicines.\nOther grants will be available\u00a0for law enforcement to investigate illegal drug activities, for high schools and colleges to support students recovering from substance abuse and for states to assist\u00a0female drug offenders who are pregnant or caring for children.\nThe Department of\u00a0Health and Human Services and the Justice Department\u00a0are the main agencies to\u00a0implement the programs.\nAll they\u00a0need now is money.\n Dual programs? \nDespite overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress for CARA\u00a0\u2013 it passed the House 407-5 and the Senate 92-2\u00a0\u2013 lawmakers have been\u00a0haggling all year over its funding.\u00a0\nDemocrat\u00a0Obama had\u00a0asked the Republican-controlled Congress to spend\u00a0$1.1 billion over two years to fight\u00a0opioid addiction, an amount the White House said\u00a0would have included up to $19 million for Indiana. Congress settled on about $900 million spread over five years, or $181 million a year, for CARA.\n\u201cThis legislation includes some modest steps to address the opioid epidemic. Given the scope of the crisis, some action is better than none,\u201d Obama\u00a0said when he signed the bill in July.\nLawmakers\u00a0so far have appropriated just $7 million for CARA\u00a0as part of a stop-gap government funding measure lasting from Oct. 1 through Dec. 9. Health and Human Services has received only\u00a0$3.3 million.\n\u201cThis appropriation will not allow us to implement most provisions of the bill and will not come close to providing the level of support necessary to make treatment for opioid use disorder available in every state,\u201d HHS said recently in an email statement to The Journal Gazette.\nIt\u00a0appears that CARA might be\u00a0on track to\u00a0receive $37 million for all of fiscal 2017. But advocates on\u00a0the left and the right have said that\u2019s far from enough for the law to be effective.\nBefore Thanksgiving, four Democrats in the Senate, including Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, and 23 Democrats in the House sent letters to congressional leaders of both parties requesting money\u00a0for CARA. The Senate Democrats recommended it be included in the 21st Century Cures Act, which would speed federal approval of drugs and medical devices and increase funding for the National Institutes of Health.\u00a0\nSure enough, over Thanksgiving break, legislators negotiating\u00a0the Cures Act agreed to\u00a0devote\u00a0$1 billion over\u00a0the next two years to fight opioid abuse, about the same amount as Obama had sought last February. The House\u00a0passed the revised bill by a 392-26 vote Wednesday, and the Senate is expected to approve\u00a0the bill this\u00a0week.\nMichael Botticelli, director of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters that much of the new money will be spent on \u201cthe opioid treatment gap.\u201d\n\u201cBy substantially investing in treatment across the country, it will, I think, dramatically change the trajectory of this disease,\u201d Botticelli\u00a0said.\nThe Cures Act will award grants to states according to\u00a0their prevalence of opioid\u00a0abuse, and the states will administer the grants. The legislation describes possible uses for the money, including prescription drug monitoring programs, training for health care workers and opioid abuse prevention activities.\nBut none of the money apparently will fund\u00a0CARA, according to Botticelli.\n\u201cThey are two different grant programs,\u201d he\u00a0said.\nIndeed, there is only one reference to\u00a0CARA in the nearly 1,000-page Cures Act, and that is related to \u201csavings in the Medicare improvement fund.\u201d Nowhere is there a mention of naloxone or the community-based coalition enhancement grants established by CARA.\nAsked whether CARA will receive sufficient\u00a0funding,\u00a0Botticelli\u00a0said, \u201cThat\u2019s up to Congress to decide.\u201d He said the $7 million appropriated so far\u00a0is \u201creally insignificant either for Justice grant programs or for the health\u00a0programs to get underway.\u201d\nDonnelly said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters that he believes Cures Act money will go to\u00a0CARA despite Botticelli\u2019s contention. Brooks\u2019 office said Thursday that although the Cures Act and CARA are separate, they may overlap.\nFor example, states might be able to tap Cures Act grants to fund addiction prevention and treatment programs offered through CARA.\nThe Cures Act \u201cis certainly not a replacement for CARA but has a similar goal, which is to fund programs helping people struggling with heroin and opioid abuse,\u201d a Brooks spokeswoman said.\nDonnelly, who like Brooks helped draft provisions of CARA, seemed\u00a0satisfied with the $1 billion infusion regardless of where it ends up.\n\u201cBy all common sense, it should be just a simple matter of providing the distribution,\u201d he said Wednesday.\nNot long before the Cures Act bargain was struck, The Journal Gazette had asked Donnelly whether\u00a0Congress was lacking\u00a0the sense of urgency on opioid addiction that it displayed when debating, amending and approving CARA\u00a0last summer.\n\u201cAll my colleagues have to do is look at the problem in their state. If anything, the sense of urgency should be increased,\u201d he said.\n\u201cIf you look at Kentucky or Ohio or West Virginia or Wisconsin; \u2026 it is killing people of all ages across the board every single day,\u201d he\u00a0said about opioid over\u00addoses.\nSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is from Kentucky, and\u00a0House Speaker Paul Ryan is from Wisconsin. Kentucky\u00a0ranked fourth\u00a0nationally, behind West Virginia,\u00a0New Mexico and New Hampshire, for drug overdose death rates in 2014, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ohio was fifth, and Indiana was 15th. The death rate is the number of deaths per 100,000 people.\nThe CDC has said more than 47,000 Americans\u00a0died from drug overdoses\u00a0in 2014, including 19,000 who died\u00a0from prescription pain relievers.\u00a0\n\u201cThe alternate cost of the damage that this scourge is causing is much, much higher than that billion dollars\u00a0\u2013 the cost of medical care, the cost of family damage, the cost of lost lives,\u201d Donnelly said.\nHe called opioid addiction \u201ca wildfire.\u201d\n Lengthy process \nBrooks said it will take time for opioid abuse grants to reach their destinations.\u00a0\n\u201cHaving been involved in the federal government, having been involved in the Justice Department, nothing moves that quickly. It takes a while to stand up new grant programs,\u201d she said.\nThe process could take longer if only\u00a0because\u00a0President-elect Donald Trump will appoint\u00a0new leadership teams at the federal agencies that administer the drug grants, Brooks said.\nState and local officials said they have received little information\u00a0on available federal funding.\u00a0\n\u201cBecause details of how CARA funding will be implemented are still unclear, it\u2019s impossible to predict how Indiana might be impacted,\u201d\u00a0Jeni O\u2019Malley, public affairs director for the Indiana State Department of Health, said in an email.\nJohn Perlich, public information officer for the city of Fort Wayne, said in an email,\u00a0\u201cGrant eligibility rules, guidelines, etc. that would allow an informed decision about pursuing those grants are still unknown.\u201d\nThere have been other sources of federal money available for preventing and treating substance abuse. HHS spent $94 million this year in Affordable Care Act funds for 271 health centers to expand their delivery of substance abuse services. And the agency\u00a0announced in August it would distribute $53 million to 44 states to fight opioid misuse.\nPark Center Inc., a Fort Wayne nonprofit that provides addiction treatment services, is primarily funded by patients\u2019 private insurance, Medicaid and self-payments, said\u00a0Tom Allman, manager of addiction services.\n\u201cYou can\u2019t really provide services based on grants in a sustainable fashion,\u00a0\u2026 because those grants run out. And when they run out, you\u2019ve got nothing to fall back on,\u201d Allman said.\nBut Allman said he believes CARA is important because it represents the beginning of \u201ca shift in thinking\u201d about addiction by the federal government.\n\u201cI think CARA puts the treatment of the medical disease of addiction on the same playing field with other medical diseases, \u2026 so people will get the help they need,\u201d he said.\nBrooks said federal legislation is only one component in the fight against opioid addiction.\n\u201cJust because we got a big bill passed or just because we put millions of dollars out there, that\u2019s not going to solve this problem,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to help, but we\u2019ve got change the culture of the country in the way the country deals with pain, the education level of people who need to learn far more about prescription drugs and the hazards of long-term use of prescription drugs and particularly opioids.\u201d\u00a0\n Also \nThe Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act will set up a federal task force to develop best practices for pain management and pain medication prescribing.\nThe panel will include representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Office of National Drug Control Policy; physicians, dentists, pharmacists and hospitals; emergency first responders; veterans organizations; and pain patients and people recovering from substance use disorder.\nThe Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force must be established by July 22, 2018, according to CARA. It is supposed to propose updates to best practices for pain management and, within a year of convening, recommend ways to address gaps and inconsistencies in those practices.\nSen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Rep. Susan Brooks, R-5th, were among lawmakers who sponsored the CARA provision establishing the task force.\n\u2013 Brian Francisco, The Journal Gazette", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://susanwbrooks.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/recovery-law-mired-in-funding-quagmire"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.19178113527596, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}