News
Vilsack hopes opioid bill gets funding
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at Opioid Abuse Prevention forum, Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri
Congress has passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act to help fight the opioid addiction epidemic but it has no funding to go along with it.
US Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is with one of the bill’s sponsors, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in her state, says there’s a general understanding of the health crisis among lawmakers, “And a deep concern – and I think that’s one of the reasons why we saw bipartisan support for Senator McCaskill’s bill,” Vilsack told reporters, “The question is whether that bipartisan support will allow the senator to do what she wanted to do now to get more resources into the system. I sincerely hope that is the case because without those additional resources, as good as the C.A.R.A. bill is, it’s not enough.”
Vilsack says the opioid abuse problem is magnified in rural areas which have a shortage of care facilities. Missouri is the only state in the nation that does not have a prescription monitoring program which could prevent some of the drug’s abuse.
Add Comment