As opioid crisis worsens, NC lawmakers dither

Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, November 15, 2017.

Members of a General Assembly oversight committee this week got what we hope they found a frightening overview of this state’s opioid-abuse problem. What our lawmakers choose to do about it will determine whether we succeed or fail in fighting to save North Carolinians’ lives.

That’s not an overstatement: Officials from the state Department of Health and Human Services say three people in North Carolina are dying from an opioid overdose every day.

And for every one of those deaths, there are three hospitalizations and four emergency room visits. Only half of those who show up at the hospital have insurance.

The death toll would be far worse without the overdose-reducing drug naloxone, which has saved the lives of 8,000 opioid users so far — 75 this year in Fayetteville alone, according to Police Chief Gina Hawkins. Sen. Ralph Hise, a Mitchell County Republican, provided an inane moment at Tuesday’s hearing when he asked if the availability of naloxone was making the opioid problem worse. We’re not sure what his reasoning was but Dr. Susan Kansagra, who leads DHHS efforts on opioids, was clear with her response: “Overdose rates are rising because we’re seeing more particularly illicit drugs coming into our state. Had we not had the naloxone, I fear that our numbers would have been much worse.”

Rep. Greg Murphy, a Greenville Republican who’s also a physician, appeared to have a better understanding of the problem. He noted that after an overdose is reversed, the victim isn’t required to receive further treatment. “Unless we get those folks into treatment, we’re not doing anything,” Murphy said. “We’re just continuing to spin our wheels and that’s one of our biggest challenges for our state.”

There are two bigger challenges that were already clear before Tuesday’s legislative hearing:

• Even if addicts were required to enter treatment after an overdose, there is a shortage of treatment facilities across the state. In many rural counties with a serious opioid problem, there are no treatment programs of any kind available. Even in the state’s major cities, there aren’t anywhere near enough treatment facilities to keep pace with the problem.

• With half of all overdose victims lacking medical insurance, there’s no simple way to pay for the treatment addicts need. This is one more health care crisis that is crying out for the expansion of the state’s Medicaid program, which could have been done easily and at little cost to the state through the Affordable Care Act. But Republican lawmakers, who hold a veto-proof majority in both branches of the legislature, were adamant that they wouldn’t allow the program to expand. In fact, making Obamacare fail was their overarching goal in health care policy. Rep. Nelson Dollar, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, told the hearing there’s too much uncertainty about federal health care policy to expand now. That’s the same baloney he and the rest of legislative leadership have been peddling since Obamacare opened for business here. The truth is that lawmakers could have cut a deal with Washington anytime they wanted to, and possibly still could.

Unless our legislative leaders agree to take serious action against our opioid crisis, it will continue to worsen. There is a desperate need to create new treatment programs and facilities, to run robust prevention programs, and to find ways to pay for the treatment that our hundreds of thousands of opioid addicts need. We also need laws and programs that will diminish the astonishing numbers — it’s in the millions — of opioid prescriptions that North Carolina physicians write every year.

Lawmakers need to remember, too, that there’s no way we can arrest our way out of this problem. We’re nearly 50 years and a trillion dollars into our nation’s War on Drugs and we still haven’t found any statute that can shut down the law of supply and demand. If there is a ready market for illicit opioids, drug cartels will find a way to supply it.

It’s time for some fresh thinking in Raleigh, and a commitment to spending the money it takes to kick this deadly habit.

http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/20171115/our-view-as-opioid-crisis-worsens-nc-lawmakers-dither