HARRISBURG — The reports and studies about the deadly epidemic with heroin and opioid drug abuse across Pennsylvania have been coming in for several years, but the issue is just now reaching critical mass in terms of getting attention from policymakers.
All of this happened last week:
•Gov. Tom Wolf has held more roundtable discussions on the epidemic’s impact on local communities.
•A special PA-HOPE House caucus met for the first time to chart a strategy.
•The Senate Democratic caucus unveiled a package of bills.
•A Republican senator from Northeast Pennsylvania introduced additional bills.
•The Pennsylvania Medical Society launched an initiative to find alternatives to addictive painkillers.
•The state corrections secretary outlined programs to help inmates with substance abuse problems.
Numbers drive the policymakers and activists: Nearly 2,500 Pennsylvanians died of heroin and opioid overdoses in 2014, making it the leading cause of accidental deaths in the state. About 80 percent of heroin addicts can trace their addiction back to use of prescription opioids, officials said.
A nagging question exists whether the burst of activity will lead to concerted action to tackle this problem as Harrisburg enters its busiest season next month.
“I think there has been way too much hot air and not enough action on this,” said Rep. Aaron Kaufer, R-120, Kingston, co-chairman of the PA-HOPE caucus. The caucus members plan to wade through a slew of bills to determine which they can support and have a chance of moving. Wolf attended the inaugural caucus meeting.
Cathleen Palm, founder of The Center for Children’s Justice, wants officials to also address a heretofore neglected area: how the epidemic is affecting pregnant women and infants born with withdrawal symptoms.
“I do think it (attention) is bipartisan and there is a lot of energy,” she said. “We would like to see the same urgency with a focus on pregnant women and children.”
Palm suggested a starting point could be providing $10 million to support home visits by professionals to those families.
Wolf hopes the roundtable discussions, often involving local lawmakers of both parties, lead to a package to fight drug abuse that can be passed with the fiscal 2016-17 budget.
“Our hope is this is part of the budget,” Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan said.
The governor has initially proposed $34 million to run some 50 centers to help individuals with substance abuse disorders.
Kaufer said a network of emergency detoxification centers in partnership with health care providers is urgently needed to help stabilize overdose patients.
The ongoing statewide initiatives include distributing naxolone, a drug that reverses the symptoms of an opioid overdose, to police departments and emergency responders, setting up boxes where people can drop off unwanted and old prescriptions and implementing a state prescription drug monitoring system.
One big challenge is finding where to direct scarce resources to address a multi-faceted and complex problem.
The bills in the hopper address a range of topics from setting up emergency treatment facilities, better coordination of longer-term treatment and recovery services, education programs for everyone from students to physicians, uniform reporting standards for overdose deaths and expanding access to naxolone.
Democratic senators called last week for a 10 percent state assessment on the sales of opioid drugs by pharmaceutical companies as a way to fund a number of programs. This assessment would generate an estimated $60 million annually.
“You can’t do it (help people) on the cheap,” Sen. Vincent Hughes, D-7, Philadelphia, said.
Pennsylvania will soon be able to combine both state and federal dollars to expand treatment programs, Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald, said. He is working on obtaining state aid for a behavioral health initiative undertaken by The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton.
Sen. Gene Yaw, R-23, Williamsport, introduced a bill last week to require better reporting of overdoses and overdose deaths. Yaw has chaired hearings by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania that have led to two reports on the epidemic.