Rep. Miceli's Comments on Approved Opiate Bill Report

WILMINGTON, MA _ Representative Miceli and the Massachusetts House of Representatives received the highly anticipated committee report this week, which rectified several differences between proposals the state Senate and House of Representatives put forward to continue turning the tide of the opiate crisis.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed the bill Wednesday that provides educators, doctors and patients with new tools to combat rising rates of addiction and death related to prescription painkillers in Massachusetts.

The lengthy bill included several major provisions, including adapting police training to counter drug-induced crimes, promoting early intervention programs targeted at at-risk individuals, and collaborating with drug manufacturers on programs to collect unwanted or outdated medication which are commonly stolen from innocent people’s medicine cabinets. All members voted with unanimous, bipartisan support with a 155 representatives in favor.

“All of us in the legislature, especially myself, looked forward to this report with great anticipation,” said Miceli in a statement issued Thursday. “It contains some great ideas to help continue pushing back the opiate crisis, and aims to prevent individuals from opportunities to begin or continue their addiction. I am proud of the financial resources, personal, and support we put towards recovery programs to help those already addicted, but we need to concentrate as well on ensuring folks don’t wind up at such a detox program or sobriety program to begin with. Giving folks a safe place to drop off medication is one such option to prevent potential addicts from spiraling out of control, and we also are developing programs on the dangers of drugs to further supplement our children’s education when they’re out of school. This bill contained many preemptive measures that will help prevent those at risk for addiction from walking down that dark path, and for those who have become lost this bill continues to expand opportunities to help them get back on the right path. Speaker DeLeo, Chairman Dempsey, and all of us here in the legislature really worked on crafting this bill and I am sure it will be well-received in the Senate too”

Other components of the legislation included the examination of other alternative treatment options to mitigate pain not based on opiate derivatives, and adding a requirement for doctors to check a prescription monitoring database to prevent addicts from seeking multiple scripts from multiple doctors. In addition to checking the database, doctors would also be required to discuss dependency risks with patients seeking pain-mitigation treatment, and also allows patients to bar themselves from being prescribed opiate-derived medication, allowing recovered addicts insurance against being accidentally administered medication and falling into addiction again.

Another major component of the bill also directed the Department of Elementary and Secondary education to develop screening protocols designed to identify and educate students addicted to opiates, and provide them with resources to continue their education while becoming clean. This component, along with other policy directives including municipal police training requirements, will be further honed by the respective departments among panels of experts in each field.