Rep. Zeldin Announces Passage of Package of Bills to Combat Heroin & Opioid Epidemic

Press Release

Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1), member of the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic, announced that a package of bipartisan bills that he has been advocating for to help fight against the growing drug epidemic, specifically the rise in heroin and prescription opioid abuse on Long Island, passed the House of Representatives this week.

Congressman Zeldin said, "Over the past year, working with the local community and my colleagues in Congress, I have been pushing to advance legislation in the House that would help provide us with the tools we need on Long Island to end the growing drug epidemic. This week, the House dedicated a full week to passing legislation aimed at addressing this epidemic by improving and increasing access to prevention, treatment, enforcement, and education."

"One of the bills that passed the House is the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, also known as "CARA," (H.R. 953)," Congressman Zeldin continued. "As a cosponsor of this bill, I have been a vocal supporter of CARA since this bill was introduced at the beginning of last year. CARA would provide up to $80 million in funding to help prevent and treat addiction on a local level through community-based education, prevention, treatment and recovery programs. The bill would also provide the funding necessary to expand prescription drug monitoring across the country, and provide funding to supply our police force and emergency medical responders with higher quantities of Naloxone, a medication that is proven to reverse an opioid overdose. Just last month, CARA passed in the U.S. Senate. With House passage of this critical bill, we now are one step closer to this bill being signed into law."

"Another bill that passed the House this week, H.R. 4641, would improve the guidelines for prescribing opioids and pain medication by creating a task force of federal agencies and stakeholders that would review, modify and update best practices for pain management and prescribing pain medication. I offered an amendment to this bill with Congressman Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, which passed the House with unanimous bipartisan support, adding language to the bill to ensure that veterans' service organizations will be part of that task force with federal agencies and relevant groups. This bill will improve the guidelines for prescribing opioids and pain medication to ensure that all parties involved in the pain medication process, from prescribers and pharmacists, to the patient who is taking the medication, have access to the most up-to-date information on pain management so that we can prevent lawful prescription use from becoming addictive. Just a few of the other bills the House passed this week include prevention measures to combat the epidemic, such as the Examining Opioid Treatment Infrastructure Act of 2016 (H.R. 4982), which would establish a report on recovery and treatment availability and infrastructure needs in the U.S., and H.R. 4976, a bill that would task a federal agency to create a plan on how to deal with the opioid and heroin epidemic. The House also passed legislation to help stop the flow of illegal drugs in our country, and keep drugs off our Long Island streets, by helping law enforcement officials identify and target drug traffickers (H.R. 3380), and allow for easier prosecution of these criminals (H.R. 4985)."

"Although there isn't just one piece of legislation that will completely solve this crisis, this week the House advanced many critical bills that will help in the fight to combat the rising drug epidemic. I will continue working with the local community and my colleagues in Congress to ensure that Long Island is equipped with the tools necessary to treat and prevent drug abuse," Congressman Zeldin concluded.

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