ASAM Supports New Legislation to Establish Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers
The cost of substance misuse, and untreated and ineffectively treated addiction in the United States is staggering, both in economic terms and in terms of human lives lost. During the twelve-month period ending January 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there were approximately 64,000 drug overdose deaths.[i] Recently, the White House Council of Economic Advisers announced that the cost of the opioid crisis, alone, approached $504 billion in 2015.[ii] And while opioid-related overdose deaths may dominate national headlines, the associated costs are a fraction of the total societal cost of substance misuse and addiction. These costs, however, could be dramatically reduced by utilizing effective substance misuse prevention practices and programs and by addressing untreated, and ineffectively treated, addiction in this country.
Given these alarming statistics, ASAM appreciates the leadership of Senator Maggie Hassan (NH) and Senator Shelly Moore Capito (WV) for introducing S. 2589, the Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Act. This legislation will create competitive grants to operate Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers that provide a full range of treatment and recovery services, such as medication assisted treatment, recovery housing, job training and supported reintegration into the workforce, counseling, and community-based and peer recovery support services.
This legislation takes a critical step toward accomplishing the two-fold objective of increasing access to treatment and ensuring that the treatment is comprehensive and offers a full continuum of clinical, vocational, and educational services to meet the needs of patients, and ASAM is pleased to offer a letter in support of it.
There remains many unaddressed factors in this country that contribute to the low utilization of addiction treatment medications and the substantial treatment gap. Combating these issues will require a comprehensive approach to strengthening prevention, treatment, and recovery services for patients with addiction. As we look forward, ASAM stands ready to work with Congress to address these larger systemic issues ingrained in our treatment system.
[i] Provisional Counts of Drug Overdose Deaths, as of 8/6/2017; https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/health_policy/monthly-drug-overdose-death-estimates.pdf
[ii]The Council of Economic Advisers. November 2017. “The Underestimated Cost of the Opioid Crisis” https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/The%20Underestimated%20Cost%20of%20the%20Opioid%20Crisis.pdf.