Opioids in The News: The “Unseen Face” of the Epidemic and More

​The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on May 24, 2018, approved five bills, which include provisions related to drug quotas and substance use prevention, in response to the opioid crisis. The Opioid Quota Reform Act will allow the U.S. Attorney General to fix and adjust the amount of opioids that are produced and manufactured each year, based on public health considerations. The Substance Abuse Prevention Act of 2018 is a wide-ranging bill; of particular interest to healthcare organizations is its Drug Overdose Response Strategy section. This section calls for information sharing between public health and public safety entities about drug abuse trends. It also calls for multidisciplinary efforts to reduce drug overdoses. Also of interest to healthcare organizations is the Using Data to Prevent Drug Diversion Act of 2018, which is designed to increase data sharing by manufacturers and distributers in order to cut down on drug diversion. The committee also approved the Access to Increased Drug Disposal Act of 2018 and the Synthetic Abuse and Labeling of Toxic Substances Act of 2017. On the same day, the Senate Finance Committee introduced 22 bipartisan bills to address the opioid epidemic and how it relates to Medicare and Medicaid.