Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each day in the United States, more than 100 people die from a drug overdose. Among people 25 to 64 years old, drug overdose causes more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 41,000 people in the United States died from a drug overdose in 2011 alone. Nearly 80 percent of those deaths were due to unintentional drug overdoses, and many could have been prevented.
Deaths resulting from unintentional drug overdoses increased more than 300 percent between 1980 and 1998, and nearly tripled between 1999 and 2011. Ninety-one percent of all unintentional poisoning deaths are due to drugs. Since 1999, in the United States the population of non-Hispanic Whites and the population of Indians (as defined in section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act ( 25 U.S.C. 450b )) have seen the highest rates of unintentional drug poisoning deaths.
Opioid medications such as oxycodone and hydrocodone are involved in 55 percent of all unintentional drug poisoning deaths. Between 1999 and 2010, opioid medication overdose fatalities increased by more than 400 percent among women and 265 percent among men. Military veterans are at elevated risk of experiencing a drug overdose. Veterans who served in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan and who have combat injuries, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other co-occurring mental health diagnoses are at elevated risk of fatal drug overdose from opioid medications.
Rural and suburban regions are disproportionately affected by opioid medication overdoses. Urban centers also continue to struggle with overdose, which is the leading cause of death among homeless adults. In the year 2009 alone, estimated lost productivity and direct medical costs from opioid medication poisonings exceeded $20,000,000,000. Both fatal and nonfatal overdoses place a heavy burden on public health and public safety resources, yet there is no coordinated cross-Federal agency response to prevent overdose fatalities.
Naloxone is a medication that rapidly reverses overdose from heroin and opioid medications. In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration held a public workshop in collaboration with the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and with participation from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to discuss making naloxone more widely available outside of conventional medical settings to reduce the incidence of opioid overdose fatalities.
Lawmakers in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia have removed legal impediments to increasing naloxone prescription and its use by bystanders who are in a position to respond to an overdose. The American Medical Association, the Nation’s largest physician organization, supports further implementation of community-based programs that offer naloxone and other opioid overdose prevention services.
Community-based overdose prevention programs have successfully prevented deaths from opioid overdoses by making rescue training and naloxone available to first responders, parents, and other bystanders who may encounter an overdose. A study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of community-based overdose prevention programs provided by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that communities with access to overdose prevention programs experienced lower mortality rates from opioid overdoses than communities that did not have access to overdose prevention programs during the study period.
Over 50,000 potential bystanders have been trained by overdose prevention programs in the United States. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report credits overdose prevention programs with saving more than 10,000 lives since 1996. At least 188 local overdose prevention programs are operating in the United States, including in major cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, and statewide in New Mexico, Massachusetts, and New York.
Between 2006 and 2009, overdose prevention programs facilitated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health trained more than 4,800 people who reported more than 500 rescues. Since 2004, a program administered by the Baltimore City Health Department has trained more than 3,000 people who reported more than 220 rescues. Project Lazarus, an overdose prevention program in Wilkes County, North Carolina, reduced overdose deaths 69 percent between 2009 and 2011. In Illinois, the Department of Human Services, Division of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse has enrolled over 20 drug overdose prevention programs with over 100 designated sites across Illinois targeting multiple service populations.
These enrollees include police departments, county health departments, medical facilities, licensed substance abuse treatment programs, and community organizations. Statewide, over 2,000 police officers and more than 600 others have been trained thus far. The DuPage County Illinois Health Department has trained over 1,200 police officers and has reported 12 overdose reversals. The Office of National Drug Control Policy supports equipping first responders to help reverse overdoses.
Police officers on patrol in Quincy, Massachusetts, have conducted 170 overdose rescues with naloxone since 2010. The police department has reported a 95-percent success rate with overdose rescue attempts by police officers. In Suffolk County, New York, police officers have saved more than 50 lives with naloxone. Research shows that the cost per year of life gained by making naloxone available to reverse overdoses is within the range of what people in the United States usually pay for health treatments.
Overdose prevention programs are needed in correctional facilities, addiction treatment programs, and other places where people are at higher risk of overdosing after a period of abstinence. People affected by drug overdose gather on August 31 of each year in communities nationwide for Overdose Awareness Day, to mourn and pay tribute to loved ones and raise awareness about overdose risk and prevention.
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