Coalition Urges Lawmakers to Pass Anti-Prescription Opioid Medication Bill

A coalition of physicians, law enforcement agencies, addiction survivors and substance abuse counselors urged state lawmakers during a press conference Tuesday to pass legislation that would make it more difficult to misuse prescription opioid medication.

House Bill 2743, which has been sitting idle in the Rules Committee since last May, would require Illinois health insurance companies to cover opioid painkillers made with abuse deterrent properties (ADP).

Prescription opioids containing this relatively new technology are significantly harder to crush and helps prevent users from breaking a pill’s extended release mechanism to achieve a quick and intense high through snorting, smoking or melting and injecting the powder, says Dr. Michael Rock, an attending anesthesiologist and pain mangement director at Community First Medical Center in Chicago.

During a demonstration, Rock showed a pill with abuse deterrent properties can withstand blows from a metal hammer, while a pill that doesn’t have the technology is pulverized with a single strike. (Click here and skip to the 20-minute mark to watch.)

“We cannot ignore the skyrocketing rates of opioid abuse which is a public health crisis today that is severely costing the state of Illinois and the rest of the country,” Rock said. “It’s estimated that Illinois’ annual healthcare cost due to opioid abuse is an estimated $887 million.”

Lake County resident Kevin Kaminski, a recovering heroin and opioid addict, said he believes HB 2743 is one of the most important pieces of legislation that can help curb abuse, save lives and also taxpayer dollars.

“In my experience, any tool we can use to help prevent drug abuse that can lead to addiction has to be used,” Kaminski said. “Abuse deterrent pills won’t solve the entire problem with opioid abuse, but making the pills more difficult to manipulate and abuse will help deter abuse.”

Kaminski has been sober for more than three years and will soon graduate college and become a certified substance abuse counselor, though he acknowledged his addiction was a major financial burden to the public, from emergency room visits to the criminal justice system.

“If more opioid pain medication was abuse deterrent, then we wouldn’t have nearly the problems we currently have,” he added.

Sangamon County Sheriff Wes Barr said tamper resistant medication won’t be a “silver bullet,” but that it could cut the demand for the drug on the street.

“Before the reformulation of OxyContin in 2010 nationwide, the drug was demanded in 60 percent of pharmacy robberies, but following the reformulation, that figure dropped to 33 percent and the street price for the ADP version of OxyContin has dropped because of low demand,” said Barr.

When asked about the cost health insurance companies would incur from being required to cover non-tamper proof drugs, Rock said they should make deals with pharmaceutical manufacturers, noting some public aid programs already include abuse deterrent medication in their health plans.

“There already is a move from the insurance industry which I absolutely applaud to work in this direction,” Rock said. “And I believe long-term it will save insurance companies a lot of money because patients who are diverting their pills, there won’t be a demand for those pills on the street.”

As of April 4, 2016, there were a total of 1,732 drug overdose deaths in 2015 compared to 1,700 the previous year, according to provisional data released this month by the Illinois Department of Public Health. More than half of drug overdose deaths last year were heroin related.

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