WASHINGTON, D.C.  – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today helped the Senate pass bipartisan, compromise legislation to take preliminary and necessary steps toward comprehensively tackling the nation’s heroin and opioid addiction. The bill already passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and will now go to the president’s desk for his signature.

Heitkamp has long been working to stem the rising tide of heroin and opioid abuse across North Dakota. The bill the Senate passed today is compromise legislation to reconcile similar bills to combat opioid abuse that passed in the Senate, which Heitkamp also supported, and the House. While the final bill does not offer new federal funding, it does take a critical step forward in combating the nation’s opioid and heroin abuse crisis by using existing resources to offer needed tools for law enforcement and first responders, as well as state prescription drug monitoring programs.

Across the country, 47,000 Americans succumbed to opioid and heroin abuse in 2014. In North Dakota, heroin and opioid abuse has become endemic. Heroin treatment cases skyrocketed from 17 people in July 2013 to 198 people last December, while statewide reports of heroin use have increased every single month from mid-2013 through 2015. According to the Centers for Disease Control, opioid-induced fatalities in North Dakota increased by 125 percent from 2013 to 2014 alone.

“Like tens of thousands of Americans across this country, too many North Dakota families in recent years have suffered as addictive poisons, like heroin and opioids, seeped into their lives – taking hold of their loved ones and too often costing them their lives,” said Heitkamp. “By passing bipartisan, comprehensive legislation today in the Senate, we are taking important steps to shine a light on this epidemic and seek solutions. To combat the heartbreaking stories and statistics as opioid-related deaths spiked by 125 percent in North Dakota, this bill would expand the tools law enforcement and first responders need, as well as resources on the ground aimed at beating addiction. But we need to keep fighting – together and in the open – to dedicate more resources to this fast-growing and deadly crisis so all of our communities are protected.”

After the bill is signed into law, the availability of anti-overdose drugs to law enforcement and first responders will be greatly expanded, and prescription drug monitoring programs would be improved to prevent individuals from accessing more prescription drugs than they need. The bill also works to shift resources to destigmatize addiction, in part by identifying and treating – rather than just criminally punishing – those incarcerated who are suffering from addiction.

In May, Heitkamp convened Burleigh County public health professionals, law enforcement officials, treatment specialists and educators in Bismarck where she unveiled her new bill to provide needed federal funds for opioid intervention and treatment resources. At the meeting, Heitkamp and the local leaders discussed how her bill would help make sure the federal government is doing its part to help communities like theirs across the state to mitigate and combat the state’s opioid and heroin abuse crisis.

Background

Since serving as North Dakota’s Attorney General in the 1990s, Heitkamp has played a leading role in supporting and protecting North Dakota communities, by:

• Bringing national drug control leaders to North Dakota to help combat crimes across the state: Heitkamp brought current and former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) directors to North Dakota – in 2013 to address major increases in drug crimes in the oil patch with law enforcement and tribal officials, and in 2014 to announce a new national strategy combatting drug crime, with a particular focus on North Dakota. Following the former ONDCP director’s visit in 2013, the agency named Williams County a High Intensity Drug Trafficking area, making it eligible for federal support.

• Securing federal anti-drug crime resources to North Dakota: In 2013, Heitkamp welcomed news of a special prosecutor in western North Dakota to help fight drug-related crimes in the state’s oil patch. The following year, Heitkamp brought together leaders from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa to focus specifically on drug abuse and trafficking on the reservation.

• Hearing firsthand about the opioid and heroin abuse challenges across North Dakota: This spring, Heitkamp met with facility leaders, medical staff, and tribal leaders during her visits to MHA Nation’s Circle of Life Drug Treatment Center and Mercy Hospital in Devils Lake where she heard about the unique challenges they face in treating skyrocketing cases of heroin, methamphetamine, and opioid abuse on rural and tribal lands – often due to a lack in the types of recovery resources.

• Fighting for legislation to equip communities with addiction and recovery resources: In May, Heitkamp unveiled her Budgeting for Opioid Addiction Treatment (LifeBOAT) Act to provide communities with funding for the tools they need to address addiction and recovery. Her bill would establish a one-cent fee on each milligram of active opioid ingredient in prescription pain pills – with certain exceptions – to help establish strong investments in prevention and treatment for this epidemic, so that families and individuals can access the care they need to beat opioid abuse.

• Providing federal law enforcement with tools to tackle international drug crime: In May, the president signed into law the bipartisan Transnational Drug Trafficking Act which Heitkamp helped introduce and pushed for, that unanimously passed in the Senate. The bill will work to close federal loopholes preventing law enforcement from going after and prosecuting drug traffickers who concoct substances that they know – or believe will be – used to peddle illegal narcotics within the United States, before the drugs reach our shores. Too often these products end up in North Dakota as drug abuse and crime have drastically risen in the state.

• Engaging statewide community in collective fight against drug crime and abuse:  Last fall, Heitkamp hosted a Strong & Safe Communities Summit with 150 statewide leaders where they discussed ways to combat growing instances of drug crime, particularly in western North Dakota. Heitkamp launched her Strong & Safe Communities Initiative in 2014 to address challenges facing North Dakota, including drug crime increases, to make sure North Dakota communities are strong and families are safe in their homes.