Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand visits Westchester County to push opioid bill in Congress

Opioid Crisis Response Act cited in effort to stop prescription painkillers from flowing illegally into the U.S.

David Robinson
Rockland/Westchester Journal News
  • The federal bill seeks to supply states with funding to share critical information.
  • The CDC says the prescription drug epidemic resulted in a record 72,000 overdose deaths last year
  • Fentanyl, blamed for much of the spike in opioid overdoses, is 50 times more potent than heroin
  • Fentanyl often arrives in the United States via mail from Mexico and China.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand used a visit to St. Vincent's Hospital Westchester to urge Congress to boost federal funding to target the opioid crisis killing thousands of New Yorkers each year.

She touted the Opioid Crisis Response Act that seeks to fight the epidemic on multiple fronts, including new steps to stop prescription painkillers from flowing into the U.S. illegally — often by the U.S. mail from abroad — and providing Americans addicted to the drugs with better access to treatment and prevention, USA TODAY reported.

The number grew in the Lower Hudson Valley who are struggling financially.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand speaks at St. VincentÕs Hospital Westchester in Harrison Sept. 17, 2018. She was there to push for funding to combat the opioid epidemic and support prescription drug monitoring programs.

Gillibrand, D-NY, worked on including funding in the bill to aid New York’s prescription drug monitoring program, which tracks medicine and limits drug abusers' ability to visit multiple doctors, known as doctor shopping.

A key problem with New York's drug monitoring program is that it doesn't have data from half of the states across the country. The federal bill seeks to supply states with funding to share the critical information.

“New York state has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic, and Congress should be doing everything it can to help our communities fight back against this crisis and prevent abuse of these highly addictive drugs,” Gillibrand said.

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The Senate legislation will still need to be reconciled with a similar measure the House passed in June. But lawmakers said they are optimistic a package could be signed into law before the end of the year.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is welcomed to St. Vincent’s Hospital Westchester in Harrison Sept. 17, 2018. She was there to push for funding to combat the opioid epidemic and support prescription drug monitoring programs.

Congress already has appropriated billions of dollars to help fight the prescription drug epidemic, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says resulted in a record 72,000 overdose deaths last year.

Some $4.7 billion directed toward the opioid crisis was included in the omnibus budget bill approved in March, and another $3.7 billion is likely to be appropriated for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, USA TODAY reported.

U.S. Representative Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, and Westchester County Executive George Latimer, stood with Gillibrand and community leaders at St. Vincent's Hospital to urge action on the bill.

Opioid addiction is a national emergency, and every level of government must work with stakeholders, including health officials, law enforcement, families of those struggling with addiction, and survivors to truly combat this threat, so that fewer people face the pain of addiction or the horror of burying a loved one gone too soon," Lowey said.

One of the bill’s key proposals seeks to curb the flow of fentanyl and other opioids coming into the U.S. via mail from places such as China.

Fentanyl, blamed for much of the spike in opioid overdoses, is a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent than heroin and often arrives in the United States via mail from Mexico and China.

“The opioid epidemic is being made worse by an influx of deadly synthetic drugs like fentanyl that is primarily being shipped into the U.S. through our own Postal Service,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who led an 18-month investigation into the illegal distribution of the drugs.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ilistens to Stephanie Marquesano, founder of the Harris Project, at St. VincentÕs Hospital Westchester in Harrison Sept. 17, 2018. The senator was there to push for funding to combat the opioid epidemic and support prescription drug monitoring programs.

One of the bill’s provisions — the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention Act, or STOP Act — would close loopholes in existing federal law by requiring the Postal Service to collect electronic data on merchandise entering the country, such as who and where it is coming from, who it’s going to, where it’s going and what is in the package.

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While New York's prescription monitoring program has reduced doctor shopping, the data went underutilized for years following a scandal at the state's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, The Journal News/lohud found.

The state’s narcotic watchdog was neutered by turnover, layoffs and political infighting in connection to the scandal.  

The cleansing also limited the use of a prescription drug monitoring database, which experts, and a former narcotic bureau director, assert should have helped curb the avalanche of pain pills burying hundreds of New Yorkers.