To: A.

Donald McEachin
From: Nicole Habel, Student RN
Date: March 16, 2017
Subject: H.R.993 – Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2017

It is becoming increasingly evident opioid abuse is a serious public health issue in the United
States. In the last two decades, the number of deaths involving opioid overdoses has nearly
quadrupled (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). As a future healthcare
provider, I support H.R. 993 the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2017. This bill
would amend the Public Health Service Act to require the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) to establish training of health care providers to properly screen patients to prevent
drug abuse and to prescribe controlled substances appropriately. This bill would also enforce the
Food and Drug Administration to consider whether or not opioid-reversal agents such as
naloxone can be accessible without a prescription.

Health care providers need more resources and government support to protect their community
from potential drug abuse and its fatal consequences. If given the authority, health care providers
could reduce the rate of opioid-overdose related deaths by prescribing reversal agents such as
naloxone whenever prescribing opioids or other medications with the potential to be abused.
Continued education courses sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services could
also benefit our providers by teaching them new dispensing patterns of drugs that could reduce
abusive potential.

 On an average day in the United States, 3,900 people initiate non-medical use of
prescription opioids (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2016).
 Four in five new heroin users started out by misusing prescription opioids. (U.S.
Department of Health & Human Services, 2016).
 $55 billion in health and social costs are related to prescription opioid abuse each year
(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2016).
 More than six out of ten drug overdoses in the United States involve prescription opioids
or heroin (CDC, 2015).
 Research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that patients
taking opioids who were given prescriptions for naloxone in a primary care setting had
63% fewer opioid-related emergency department visits after one year compared to those
who did not receive prescriptions for naloxone (NIDA, 2016).

Recommendation: Vote to pass bill H.R.993 - Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of
2017. As you can see, prescription opioids can have a fatal impact on the users that abuse them as
well as a financial burden on our health care system. Medications such as naloxone are an
effective lifesaving measure for patients that require opioid prescriptions for chronic pain. I
recommend that health care providers be required to attend an annual continuing education course
to learn how to decrease unnecessary prescriptions for opioids and recognize when patients have
abuse potential. I also think that the Food and Drug Administration should make opioid-reversal
agents more easily accessible for providers and patients.

Our government agencies are in place to protect their citizens, especially when the battleground is
in our own backyard. I will continue to support H.R. 993 – Opioid Abuse Prevention and
Treatment Act of 2017 in hopes that future fatalities from opioid-related overdoses are reduced.
 References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2015). Drug overdose deaths in the United States
continue to increase in 2015. Retrieved from
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/

National Institute on Drug Abuse (2016). Co-prescribing naloxone in primary care settings may
reduce ER visits. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-
releases/2016/06/co-prescribing-naloxone-in-primary-care-settings-may-reduce-er-visits

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (2016). The opioid epidemic: By the numbers.
Retrieved from https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/Factsheet-opioids-061516.pdf