Scanlon Bill Limiting Excess Prescription Drugs Passes Committee

GUILFORD, CT - This week, the General Assembly's Public Health Committee unanimously passed SB 352, An Act Concerning Prescriptions for and the Dispensing of Opioid Antagonists, which included a provision written by Rep. Sean Scanlon (D-Guilford) which limits first-time adult opioid prescriptions for non-chronic pain to a 7 day supply and limits all prescriptions for minors to a 7 day supply in which case the prescribing practitioner must discuss the risks associated with opioids with the minor's parent or guardian.

"Excess and unused prescription drugs are one of the leading causes of our current opioid and heroin crisis and I'm grateful to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for supporting this landmark legislation," said Rep. Scanlon said in a prepared statement. "By cutting down on the number of pills doctors give out for acute pain, we will dramatically diminish the amount of excess pills that then fall into the wrong hands whether happens innocently or intentionally."

Last week, in a fundamental shift from past practice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines to physicians advising them to refrain when possible from giving opioid prescriptions to patients suffering from non-chronic pain.

Their reasoning was in line with what medical experts have long said: that excess pills from prescriptions pose a significant public health risk to the United States. Because the public is generally unaware of the proper way to dispose of these powerful drugs, they often end up keeping them in their medicine cabinets, sometimes for years, where they can unfortunately fall into the wrong hands.

In a recent survey released by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 50.5% of people who misuse prescription painkillers get them from a friend or a relative compared to 22.1% who begin abusing them following being issued a prescription. Moreover, the danger to those abusing these pills increases dramatically once they no longer have access to them and turn to a similar (and cheaper) opiate such as heroin. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, 4 out of 5 new heroin users started out by misusing prescription painkillers.

Now that SB 352 has passed the Public Health committee, it heads to the floor of the House and Senate. If it passes both chambers and is signed by the Governor, Connecticut would be just the second state in the nation to limit most prescriptions to a 7 day supply. Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts signed a similar law last week making them the first state to do so.

Scanlon has made fighting the prescription drug and heroin abuse epidemic a central focus of his first year and a half in office.

This is the second piece of legislation concerning the issue he has worked on. In 2015, he co-sponsored Public Act 15-198, a landmark law that requires prescription drug abuse education for doctors and other prescribers, cracks down on "doctor shopping" for prescription drugs, and allows pharmacists to provide life-saving anti-overdose drugs like Narcan over the counter. Yet, Scanlon says, there is still a lot of work to be done.

"There is no silver bullet solution to this crisis but the good news is we are making progress," said Scanlon in a prepared statement. "I truly believe this bill, if passed, will go a long way towards cutting off this problem before it even begins and I look forward to working to pass it between now and the end of the legislative session."

Scanlon was joined at a press conference announcing the bill by Sue Kruczek, a Guilford parent who lost her son Nick to an overdose in 2013 at the age of 20.

“By significantly reducing the amount of unnecessary opiates being prescribed will alleviate the misuse of unused pills falling into the wrong hands, drastically reducing the addiction and overdose rate,” Sue Kruczek, a Guilford mother who lost her son to a heroin overdose in 2013 said. “I fully believe my son Nick would be with us today if this bill was in place. This would save the "Nicks" of the future.”

Those interested in learning more about the opioid and heroin crisis can join Rep. Scanlon on March 29th at 7pm at the Branford Fire House for a community forum. He held a similar forum in Guilford last month. For questions about the event, contact Rep. Scanlon at sean.scanlon@cga.ct.gov or 860-240-8585.