Good morning everyone. Today the subcommittee of oversight and investigation holds a hearing entitled combatting the Opioid Crisis battles in the states. Now, make no mistake the term combatting and battled are entirely appropriate. Our nation is in the midst of devastation around every corner of the nation. In 2015 there were more than in the u. S. , more than 33,000 deaths involved in opioid. 24 increase from the prior year. Overdose death rate in 2015 was almost seven times the rate of deaths from the heroin epidemic of the 1970s. For 2016 weve already announced from New York Times weve lost roughly 60,000 people to Drug Overdose and that is more in one year than all the names on the Vietnam Veterans memorial wall. And likely that number is underestimated because much of the data will not be in until the end of this year 2017. Its staggering. For every fatal overdose its estimated there are 20 nonfatal overdoses and for 2016 that could be near 1 million. More than 183,000 lives have
By U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley
R-Iowa
and U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra
R-Iowa
Between July of 2021 and June of 2022, more than 107,000 Americans tragically died from
Bipartisan Group Seeks to Use Part of COVID-19 Stimulus Money for Opioid Crisis
A bipartisan group of Congress members is asking the Treasury Department to let states use funding from the most recent stimulus bill to combat the opioid epidemic.
“We write to urge that any guidance clarifying permissible uses of the American Rescue Plan’s State and Local Government Fiscal Recovery Fund clearly allows recipient governments to spend those awards to combat the worsening overdose crisis,” the group wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“State and local governments are on the front lines of responding to overdoses, a crisis intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they need maximum flexibility to use every resource available to them to provide mental health and addiction treatment supports,” they added.