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Gillibrand to be in Jamestown this morning

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will visit the Mental Health Association in Jamestown this morning to announce the Opioid Addiction Prevention Act, bipartisan legislation to crack down on one of the most dangerous root causes of the opioid addiction crisis – the over-prescription of opioids for patients with short-term, acute pain.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data this month that shows that the over-prescription of opioids continues to be a serious public health problem in the United States. While the overall amount of opioids prescribed in the U.S. decreased between 2010 and 2015, the amount prescribed in 2015 was still three times as high as the amount prescribed in 1999. In response to this latest report, CDC Acting Director Anne Schuchat said the amount of opioids prescribed in 2015 was enough “for every American to be medicated around the clock for three weeks.”

The bill, modeled after New York State law, would limit the supply of an initial opioid prescription for acute pain to seven days. Many individuals become addicted to opioids after taking prescriptions for acute pain, such as a broken bone or wisdom tooth extraction. The Opioid Addiction Prevention Act would require medical professionals to certify, as part of their DEA registration, that they will not prescribe an opioid as an initial treatment for acute pain in an amount that exceeds a seven-day supply, and may not provide a refill as part of that initial prescription.

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