Federal grants are reserved for opioids against Miss Mark

During his 40 years working with people in difficulty With addiction, David Crowe has seen various drugs become popular in Crawford County, Pennsylvania.

The use and distribution of methamphetamine is a major challenge for rural areas, says Crowe, executive director of the Crawford County Executive Board on Drugs and Alcohol. And overdoses related to opioids have killed at least 83 people in the county since 2015, he said.

Crowe says his organization has received just over $ 327,300 in key federal grants designed to combat the opioid epidemic. Although this money is a boon to his country, he adds that methamphetamine remains a major problem.

And here's the problem: Crawford County, located south of Lake Erie, on the edge of the state of Ohio, can only use federal opioid subsidies to treat methamphetamine addiction.

"Now I'm looking for something different," says Crowe. "I do not need more opiate money – I need money that will not be used exclusively for opioids."

The federal government has distributed at least $ 2.4 billion in state subsidies since 2017, in hopes of ending an opioid epidemic that killed 47,600 people in the United States alone. year.

However, state officials noted that drug abuse issues rarely involved a single substance. And while local officials are thankful for the funding, the grants can only be used to create opioid-fighting solutions, such as prescription OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl.

According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 states – including California, Pennsylvania and Texas – reported that opioids were involved in less than half of drug overdose deaths in 2017.

In addition, the injection of liquidity by the federal government is only guaranteed for a few years, which calls into question the sustainability of state efforts. Drug policy experts say the money may not be enough to improve the mental health care system. And we need to focus more on the answer to the underlying question of why many Americans are fighting addiction, they say.

"Even the nickname" The Opioid Epidemic "is problematic and incorrect," said Leo Beletsky, an badociate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. "There has never been any talk of opioids."

States have received federal funding for opioids primarily through two grants: Targeted State Response to the Opioid Crisis and State Response to Opioids. The first grant, authorized by the law of the 21st century, totaled $ 1 billion. The second money pot, $ 1.4 billion (approved under last year's Generalized Spending Bill), sets aside a portion of the funding for the states with the highest number of deaths due to poisoning by drugs.

For Ohio and Pennsylvania, the need was crying. Nearly 4,300 and 2,550 residents, respectively, died from an opioid-related overdose in both states in 2017. Ohio received $ 137 million in grants; Pennsylvania, $ 138.1 million.

State officials said the federal money had allowed them to invest significantly in programs such as training health care providers to addiction, offering more points. access for treatment and offering interventions to particular populations, such as pregnant women.

Grants also provide for a minimum amount for each state. Thus, even in regions where the rate of opioid-related overdose deaths is low, now has considerable funds to fight the crisis. Arkansas, for example, reported 188 opioid-related deaths in 2017 and received $ 15.7 million from the federal government.

Statistics show that 2,199 people in California died of opioid-related causes in 2017, although its opioid death rate is one of the 10 lowest in the country. The Golden State received $ 195.8 million in funding – more than any other state.

"This funding is dedicated to opioids," said Marlies Perez, division chief at the California Department of Health Care, "but we are not blindly building a system dedicated to opioids."

More and more evidence indicates a worrying increase in the use of methamphetamine nationwide. The presence of cheaper and cleaner forms of methamphetamine on the drug market, coupled with a decrease in the availability of opioids, has fueled the popularity of the stimulant.

The number of drug overdose deaths involving methamphetamine tripled from 2011 to 2016, reports the CDC.

And amphetamine-related hospitalizations – the clbad of stimulants that includes methamphetamine – are increasing.

The problem of methamphetamine addiction is difficult to solve, say the doctors. The treatment options for this addiction are narrower than the table available for opioids. Given the increasing number of deaths from other substances, are these restricted subsidies the best way to finance the opioid response of states?

Bertha Madras, a professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School and a former member of the Presidential Commission on Drug Abuse and Opioid Crisis, said the federal government has responded well by adapting its response to opioids continuing to kill tens of thousands of people. Americans per year.

However, Madras adds, as more and more people with addictions are identified and the popularity of other drugs increases, the country's interest will have to change.

Beletsky points out that the grants are not sufficient to allow for corrective action to the mental health care system, which must meet the needs of patients living with an addiction.

People dependent on a substance usually consume other drugs. According to Dr. Paul Earley, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, controlling lifelong dependence a person may look like to play cinglery, that 's because they can stop using one substance to abuse another.

But specific addictions may also require specific treatments that can not be treated with molded tools for opioids, say addiction specialists, and the appropriate treatment may not be as available.

"I think we really need to start self-examination to find out why this country is so addicted," Madras said.

Kaiser Health News is a non-profit, editorial independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.