Tag Archives: drug addiction

Trump enacts anti-opioid abuse package in rare bipartisan step

FILE PHOTO: A syringe filled a narcotic, an empty syringe and a spoon sit on the roof of a car, where a man in his 20's overdosed on opioids in Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S., August 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyde

By Yasmeen Abutaleb

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Medical treatment will be more widely available to opioid abusers while mailing illicit drugs will be more difficult under a measure to fight drug addiction that was signed into law on Wednesday by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a year more typically marked by partisan gridlock, Trump signed the rare bipartisan package passed by Congress earlier this month to tackle a problem that led to a record 72,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017.

The legislation expands access to substance abuse treatment in Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled; cracks down on mailed shipments of illicit drugs such as fentanyl, a synthetic opioid far more powerful than heroin; and provides a host of new federal grants to address the crisis.

The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 98-1 in September after a 353-52 vote in favor in the House. The bill had 252 bipartisan cosponsors in the House, more than almost any other bill in recent years, according to website GovTrack Insider.

Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency last year, which enabled the government to respond more quickly to crises. But addiction experts, advocacy groups and Democrats said the administration was not doing enough.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Patty Murray released a U.S. Government Accountability Office report that they said showed Trump’s emergency declaration fell short of his promises. The report said the government has used few of the powers it could use, under the declaration.

“Hand waving about faster paperwork and speeding up a few grants is not enough. The Trump administration needs to do far more to stop the opioid epidemic,” Warren said in a statement.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said the criticism from the senators was “predictable and unfortunately very partisan,” noting that both voted for the opioids legislation.

In addition to educating the public and expanding access to treatment, Conway said the administration was also focused on securing the border with Mexico to stop drugs from coming into the United States.

(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Cynthia Osterman)

Arkansas sues opioid manufacturers for roles in epidemic

A Johnson & Johnson building is shown in Irvine, California, U.S., January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – Arkansas’ attorney general on Thursday joined the widening mass of litigation against opioid manufacturers, accusing three drugmakers of promoting addictive painkillers in ways that falsely denied or trivialized their risks.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a lawsuit in state court in Little Rock accusing Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson, Johnson and Endo International Plc of engaging in misleading marketing practices.

The case made Arkansas at least the 17th U.S. state to sue manufacturers of prescription opiods amid a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the painkillers.

The lawsuit contended the drugmakers spent millions of dollars on promotional activities that downplayed the risks of addiction associated with opioids while falsely touting the benefits of using the drugs to treat chronic pain.

“The reckless actions of these opioid manufacturers have wreaked havoc upon Arkansas and her citizens for far too long,” Rutledge said in a statement.

Purdue, the manufacturer of OxyContin, denied the allegations in a statement while saying it is “deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis.”

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit – which manufactures drugs including the opioid Duragesic, a form of fentanyl – called its marketing activities “appropriate and responsible.” Endo did not respond to a request for comment.

Prescription opioids are intended to treat pain, but the outbreak of addiction to the drugs has led to a tsunami of lawsuits by cities and counties. The lawsuits have sought to recoup damages from drugmakers for their role in the epidemic.

Opioids were involved in more than 42,000 overdose deaths in 2016, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least 433 lawsuits are consolidated before U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, who has been pushing for a quick settlement and has invited state attorneys general with cases and probes not before him to participate in the talks.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers pursuing the case have generally not quantified the potential costs involved in the cases but have compared them with litigation by states against the tobacco industry that led to 1998’s $246 billion settlement.

The U.S. Justice Department in a March 1 filing sought 30 days to evaluate participating in the litigation, citing the “substantial costs that the federal government has borne as a result of the opioid epidemic.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis)