WASHINGTON – A dozen Iowa-based groups announced their support for comprehensive addiction recovery legislation ahead of tomorrow's anticipated vote in the U.S. Senate. The bipartisan conference report for the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act combines proposals from the House of Representatives and the Senate to address the nation's opioid addiction crisis.
The bill is supported by nearly 250 addiction, recovery, and law enforcement advocacy organizations across the country. Iowa organizations that have voiced their support for the legislation include:
Henry County Substance Abuse Coalition
Partnership for a Drug Free Iowa
Jones County Safe and Healthy Youth Coalition
Quad Cities Harm Reduction
Alliance of Coalitions for Change (AC4C)
Van Buren SAFE Coalition
Kossuth Connections
Siouxland Cares
Gateway ImpACT Coalition
Pathways Behavioral Services, Inc.
Iowa Alliance for Drug Endangered Children
Community Resources United to Stop Heroin (CRUSH) of Eastern Iowa – Dubuque Chapter
Last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley led the Senate delegation in a bicameral conference committee meeting to finalize the conference report for CARA, which passed in the House on a vote of 407-5. The Senate must now pass the conference report before it heads to the president’s desk to be signed into law.
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act addresses the opioid crisis by authorizing almost $900 million over five years for prevention, education, treatment, recovery, and law enforcement efforts.
The conference report includes several provisions championed by Grassley to assist rural communities like much of Iowa, including reserved funding to train first responders in rural America to administer live-saving opioid overdose reversal medication. In addition, the conference report includes Grassley-authored accountability provisions to ensure that waste, fraud, and abuse of federal grant money is rooted out. The bill also contains the Kingpin Designation Improvement Act, legislation introduced in the Senate by Grassley and Senator Amy Klobuchar that strengthens the ability of the federal government to freeze the assets of foreign drug kingpins, who traffic opioids, methamphetamine and other illegal narcotics into the United States. Finally, the report retains language negotiated by Grassley and included in the Senate-passed bill that extends eligibility for new community-based coalition enhancement grants to areas like Iowa that are suffering from local drug crises related to methamphetamine, in addition to opioids.
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