WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hours after sending letters to President Obama and the leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging them to work together to fund the fight against the opioid and heroin crisis, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) took to the Senate floor to implore his colleagues in the Senate to do the same.

“Last March, this body passed CARA – the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. Unfortunately, at the same time, we didn’t fund it. We didn’t provide any additional funds to support the treatment and recovery of people through the country. Since we passed that bill and failed to fund it, 15,000 people have died – 78 a day, 3 an hour have died because we haven’t acted on funding…. These are real people. I’ve had roundtables in my home state, sat next to a Deputy Sheriff who lost his daughter. One woman said she hoped her son would be arrested so maybe then he could get into treatment. These are regular, ordinary Americans that are being affected by this,” Senator King said on the Senate floor. “I can talk about the fact that opioid prescription drugs lead to heroin and other drugs but the real subject today is funding. Let’s deal with this terrible problem that is taking lives, tearing families apart, and deeply wounding the heart of America. I ask the consideration of this whole body for this urgent problem and that we take real steps to deliver help to those people who are asking for it.”

Senator King’s remarks on the floor come in the wake of letters he sent to President Obama and the Chair and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee asking that they work together to fund the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) in any potential Continuing Resolution that is advanced before the end of this month.

CARA, which was passed by Congress and signed by the President earlier this year, authorizes government programs to combat the opioid and heroin crisis but does not actually appropriate any money to do so and Congress has since failed to provide funding for it through any other legislation. If the money requested by Senator King is not included in a Continuing Resolution to fund the government at the end of this month, then CARA would likely go unfunded through the rest of the year – at a time when drug-related deaths in Maine are on track to surpass last year’s record numbers.

Senator King has been a leading proponent of providing adequate funding to fight the heroin and opioid crisis. In January 2016, he cosponsored legislation with Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that would dedicate $600 million to law enforcement programs at the Department of Justice and treatment programs through the Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate earlier this year rejected that legislation as an amendment to CARA, which Senator King criticized as a “missed opportunity.”

According to the Maine Attorney General, 272 people in Maine died in 2015 as a result of drug overdoses – the vast majority of those deaths were caused by heroin, fentanyl or prescription opioids. It was recently announced that Maine is on pace to exceed that number in 2016, with 189 deaths through the first six months of this year. These deaths come at a time when demand for treatment services has increased while access to them has decreased.

Click HERE for the complete text of Senator King’s letter to President Obama and click HERE for the complete text of his letter to Senate appropriators.

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