SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act
Yesterday, on the one-year anniversary of declaring a national opioid public health emergency, President Trump signed into law the “Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recover and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act,” also known as the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act.
The law is expected to reduce access to and the supply of opioids while also boosting access to prevention, treatment and recovery services.
Other major policy changes addressed by the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act include:
- Lifting restrictions on medications for opioid addiction and allowing more types of health care practitioners to prescribe the drugs;
- Increasing penalties for drug manufacturers and distributors related to the overprescribing of opioids;
- Addressing the need for improved coordination between federal agencies to stop the importation of illicit drugs by giving the agencies the power to more efficiently stop illegal, illicit, unapproved, counterfeit and potentially dangerous drugs from entering the US;
- Allowing the FDA to issue a mandatory recall for any controlled substance if there is a reasonable probability that the controlled substance would cause serious adverse health consequences or death (previously recalls could only be done voluntarily);
- Allowing the FDA to require certain packaging, such as unit dose blister packs, for opioids or other drugs that pose a risk of abuse or overdose;
- Creating a grant program for “Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers” which will attempt to serve the addiction treatment and recovery needs of their communities;
- Making changes to Medicare and Medicaid to limit the overprescribing of opioid painkillers within the programs and expand access to addiction treatment;
- Enhancing education and raises awareness about proper pain treatment among health care providers.