Lance’s Opioid Package Sent to POTUS

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Congressman Leonard Lance (NJ-07), a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, today secured the passage of a major anti-opioid bill sending the measure to the President’s desk.  Lance’s Committee wrote the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act with the measure including the Lance-Kennedy bill Eliminating Opioid-Related Infectious Diseases Act in the final product.

“I have seen the struggle in our New Jersey communities and met with too many of our neighbors who have lost a loved one to addiction.  This national crisis has resulted in this action in Congress today to give greater resources, treatment and mitigation tools to fight opioid addiction and I am especially pleased my bipartisan measure with Congressman Joe Kennedy, the Eliminating Opioid-Related Infectious Diseases Act, is included in the final package.  This is how Congress is supposed to work.  We see a problem in our communities and we work in a bipartisan effort to take action,” said Lance.      

Lance’s Energy and Commerce Committee has tackled some of the most pressing public health issues of our time and delivered on the critical matters of CHIP, mental health care, childhood cancer prevention and now, again, tools to fight the menace of drug abuse and addiction.  H.R. 6 was advanced out of the Committee and passed in an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House earlier this year.  Today’s vote includes input from the U.S. Senate and sends the final bill to the President.  It’s not the first time Lance and his Committee took charge against this national crisis.  Lance served as a member of the conference committee that produced the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2016.

This week Lance also backed a government spending measure that appropriated $6.7 billion in funding boosting programs that fight, treat and stop substance abuse as well as support access to mental health services.  These resources include increased funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  New Jersey has received $26 million in anti-opioid grant funding secured by Lance, in addition to the substance abuse treatment services funded through Medicaid.