President Obama has reluctantly agreed to sign into law a bill that purports to address the rise in opioid abuse in the United States.
Obama said he would not veto the legislation, after it cleared its final legislative hurdle on Wednesday, in a 92-2 Senate vote. Democrats have begrudgingly supported the measure, characterizing it as an under-funded election year ploy.
“While the President will sign this bill once it reaches his desk because some action is better than none, he won’t stop fighting to secure the resources this public health crisis demands,” the White House said in a statement. “Congressional Republicans have not done their jobs until they provide the funding for treatment that communities need to combat this epidemic.”
Critics of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) from the left have said it falls short of funding needed, by about $900 million.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who was involved in final negotiations between lawmakers of both parties, had “tried to include funding in CARA” but was thwarted, his office said on Wednesday evening.
Leahy noted, however, that the legislation does improve policy by treating “opioid addiction as an illness.”
“For too long, Congress relied on punitive measures that only served to push addicts further underground and away from recovery,” he said.
Both of these sentiments were largely echoed by the other half of the Vermont senate delegation.
“I strongly support parts of the bill passed today, but any action will have little effect if Congress does not invest to expand access to treatment clinics and programs,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
The mere fact that Republicans in Congress are willing to treat any addiction as a public health issue has come as something of a surprise to observers.
But they appear motivated by a combination of the election in November and the drastic increase in the number of people who have developed problems; many of whom, as a direct result of pill-pushing the health care industry. Drug overdose rates more than doubled in the US, between 1999-2014, in a trend driven by opioid abuse.
In May, The New York Times noted a sharp increase in GOP-sponsored opioid addiction initiatives, reporting that “some House and Senate Republicans are basing part of their re-election strategies on sponsoring and passing bills to help drug addicts.”
“Last week, the House passed 18 opioid bills, giving an array of vulnerable House Republicans measures to attach their names to,” the paper said.
As Truthout’s Mike Ludwig noted, the Republican Party’s strategy, of portraying itself as anti-opioid abuse, has led to at least one nasty Karl Rove-linked attack ad, in the New Hampshire senate contest.
The thirty-second TV spot accuses the Democratic candidate, Gov. Maggie Hassan, of deliberately neglecting addicts, by pointing to a budget veto that was the result of wider partisan disagreement.
