Biden needs to protect families from opioid addiction

In the U.S., we lose more than 80,000 loved ones a year to opioid-related overdose deaths. This number represents real people — friends, spouses, and relatives — and includes my own son, Jeffrey.

As a mother, I know all too well the impact of the opioid addiction crisis. My husband and I fiercely advocate on behalf of our child in hopes that no parent faces the same fate.

Unfortunately, although Congress has acted on our call to expand access to non-addictive pain management options, the Biden administration is delaying the progress we made. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) must act urgently to implement a proactive policy to fight the opioid addiction crisis before it affects millions more.

Too often in our country, we focus on downstream solutions instead of facing our problems head on. The opioid epidemic is one of the most devastating examples, as we witnessed with our own son. Jeffrey fought addiction for 18 long years, all starting with a prescription following a wisdom teeth removal at age 17. He went through rehabilitation and even prison before passing away from his addiction at the young age of 36.

I saw firsthand with my son that, once you become addicted to opioids, you are locked in for a lifetime battle. Jeffrey’s passions for things like baseball and art were all lost to a stronger force. While we must support those battling addiction, I continue to implore leaders in Washington to act on the solutions right in front of them that would prevent addiction before it starts. If something could have prevented Jeffrey from being given that opioid prescription, I might still have my son today.

Fortunately, we are on the path to a viable solution. In 2022, Congress passed the Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction in the Nation (“NOPAIN”) Act in its end-of-year legislative package. Once implemented, this policy will expand patient and provider access to safe, FDA-approved non-opioids in outpatient surgical settings. The NOPAIN Act will cover millions of Medicare patients who undergo outpatient procedures every year and prevent addiction before it starts for those who might have otherwise fallen to addiction if prescribed opioids.

As our nation’s battle with fentanyl rages on, we cannot ignore that 75% of heroin users report using a prescription opioid before moving to illicit substances, making solutions like the NOPAIN Act an important upstream measure to fight the epidemic.

This legislation is increasingly urgent as we consider the scope of the opioid addiction crisis. In 2021, We lost over 107,000 Americans to drug overdose, with three out of every four people lost succumbing to opioid-related overdoses. In 2021, we lost nearly 7,200 Californians to opioid overdoses. And in San Francisco, California’s 11th Congressional District, we had an opioid overdose rate more than twice the national average in 2020.

Unfortunately, the effects of the NOPAIN Act will not be implemented as soon as we so desperately need. Its provisions will not go into effect under CMS until 2025. That is two more years of patients being prescribed opioids unnecessarily and facing the risk of addiction. It is also two more years where those with substance use disorder must weigh if they should undergo an outpatient procedure at the risk of falling back into addiction if exposed to an addictive pain treatment. With 220 people dying each day from opioid-related overdoses, CMS must recognize what waiting to implement the NOPAIN Act will mean for thousands of families.

Putting a policy like the NOPAIN Act into action is not an unfamiliar process to CMS. The agency has expanded access to non-opioids before within the ambulatory surgical setting, updating its policies in 2019 to provide greater access to non-opioid pain management options. The agency has the playbook to make the NOPAIN Act happen, it just needs to treat this legislation with the urgency it deserves.

I cannot bring Jeffrey back, but I can fight to make sure other families do not go through the same experience I did. As lawmakers pass life-saving legislation, CMS must bring it across the finish line. We cannot wait one day more than necessary to prevent addiction before it starts.

Sue Choate Brye, an opioid addiction crisis advocate.