This week, the Senate begins consideration of the Comprehensive Addiction & Recovery Act (S. 524), bipartisan legislation designed to ensure that federal resources are devoted to evidence-based education, treatment and recovery programs that work.  There are a number of important aspects of the bill.  It helps veterans.  It focuses on women and babies, as Senator Portman wrote in the Washington Examiner this morning.  But it does much more than that.  Education and prevention are key aspects of the bill as well.

Here’s three ways the bill expands efforts to educate and prevent drug abuse before it begins:

• The bill establishes an inter-agency task force, composed of representatives from HHS, VA, DEA, CDC, addiction treatment organizations, and other stakeholder communities to develop best practices for pain management and pain medication prescribing.  It also requires the Task Force to submit a report to Congress outlining a dissemination strategy and other recommendations. 
• The measure authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to states, local governments, and non-profits to expand educational efforts—particularly aimed at teens and aging populations—to prevent the abuse of opioids and heroin and to promote treatment and recovery. 
• The bill authorizes the Attorney General, in consultation with the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to award grants to entities suffering from drug crises to implement community-wide prevention strategies.

As Senator Portman said in the Washington Examiner this morning:  "The good news is that bipartisan momentum is building behind this bill and for Senate action. We have strong support from members on both sides of the aisle. Both Republican and Democrat leaders have lined up to support it..”

And more than 130 national anti-drug groups support the bill, including the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, Faces and Voices of Recovery, the Children's Hospital Association, the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National District Attorneys Association and the Major County Sheriffs Association.  Ohio anti-drug groups back the measure as well.

As the heroin epidemic continues to grip Ohio, Portman will keep up his work to get his bill over the finish line so that we can prevent people from using drugs in the first place, and also help those struggling with addiction get their lives back on track.