E & C House Subcommittee Slated to Review Eight Bills on Opioids

Recently, the House Energy & Commerce Health Subcommittee announced that it will hold a hearing on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, at 10:00 am, to review eight bills that will attempt to curtail the opioid epidemic. The hearing, “Combating the Opioid Crisis: Helping Communities Balance Enforcement and Patient Safety,” is the first of three planned legislative hearings to examine the opioid crisis and possible legislative solutions. The following bills are expected to be considered during that hearing: H.R. 2851, the Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues (SITSA) Act, introduced by Representative John Katko, would provide law enforcement the tools that they need to get elicit synthetic drugs (i.e., fentanyl) off the streets without compromising important public health and research protections. The bill will also modernize scheduling guidelines and make the guidelines more efficient to keep pace with the fast-changing nature of synthetic drugs. H.R. 5041, the Safe Disposal of Unused Medication Act, is a bipartisan piece of legislation authored by Representatives Tim Walberg and Debbie Dingell that will reduce the number of unused controlled substances that are at risk of diversion or misuse by permitting hospice workers to safely dispose of those medications in patients’ homes. H.R. __, the Ensuring Patient Access to Substance Use Disorder Treatments Act of 2018, is a current discussion draft written by Representative Ryan Costello and Rick No...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs