CADCA

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) bill moved to the Senate floor last week and your support is still needed. Today the full Senate voted 93-3 to close debate on the bill. It is likely that the Senate will have a final vote on CARA today.

Coalition Director Lori Springer had met far too many young people whose parents were incarcerated for drug-related crimes. She and other community advocates sought to do something about it. The remedy has been a Dose of Prevention.  

“Prevention works. It is cheaper than treatment or to lock somebody up. Substance abuse takes too many lives and ruins too many lives. It affects their family and their community,” Springer said.

Organizing the community wasn’t difficult.

“It was like throwing a rock into a pond. We had a ripple effect,” she said.

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) bill moved to the Senate floor this week.

The bill authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to address the national epidemics of prescription opioid abuse and heroin use.

In response to the opioid abuse epidemic, Dr. Robert Califf, the Food and Drug Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco, along with other FDA leaders, called for a far-reaching action plan to reassess the agency’s approach to opioid medications. The plan will focus on policies aimed at reversing the epidemic, while still providing patients in pain access to effective relief.

The FDA will:

Bill Gentes, the Project Coordinator for the Lake County Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force in Lake County, Ill., had a unique challenge. The coalition’s nine permanent drop boxes were at capacity. So, using strategies learned at CADCA’s National Coalition Academy, the coalition leveraged their resources, advocated for a state law, and, as a result, increased collection capacity and lowered their opioid overdose rates.

But the “adventure in advocacy,” as Gentes puts it, wasn’t without its challenges.

While the number of prescriptions for the stimulant Adderall has remained unchanged among young adults, misuse and emergency room visits related to the drug have risen dramatically in this group, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

The Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) applauds the Senate Judiciary Committee’s bi-partisan, unanimous vote today to send the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) bill to the Senate floor.

The Committee held a markup on the bill today, and voted for the bill unanimously.

The bill authorizes the Attorney General to award grants to address the national epidemics of prescription opioid abuse and heroin use.

CADCA commends Walgreens for its commitment to install secure collection bins for unused, unwanted and/or expired prescription drugs in their stores.