Guinta, Kuster Urge 'Robust' Funding for Heroin Prevention

New Hampshire’s two congressional representatives, Frank Guinta and Anne Kuster, a Republican and Democrat, who together founded the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic, have requested that the House Appropriations Committee provide “robust funding” to provisions in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), according to a press statement.

Guinta and Kuster cosponsored the House bill, a version of which passed the Senate nearly unanimously last week. CARA requires federal health and law enforcement departments to better coordinate their response to a growing nationwide heroin epidemic. The bill also expands grants to states to encourage education and treatment.

In a letter to Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (KY-05) and the Committee’s Ranking Member Nita Lowey (NY-17), the Granite State representatives describe a problem that has devastated New Hampshire, where over-prescribed legal opiate medication often leads legitimate patients – as well as healthy children and adults, who find drugs like OxyContin and Oxycodone on the black market – to cheaper, deadlier heroin. Across the United States, rates of addiction, overdose and death among a variety of demographics have doubled or tripled.

Last year, one out of every 3,000 New Hampshire residents died of a heroin or related overdose. “We must act this year to ensure that our law enforcement officials, care givers mental health experts, and others have the resources necessary to address this crisis in a comprehensive way,” write Representatives Guinta and Kuster in their letter urging more funding.

Former Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (WI-05), who introduced CARA in the House, and Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01) – a member of the Bipartisan Heroin Task Force, now with over 70 members – helped them draft and circulate the letter to members of Congress. Fifty-nine Republican and Democrat House members have signed on to the letter.

“Districts around the country are experiencing the heroin epidemic, claiming productive members of society. This scourge is ripping apart families, costing thousands of American their lives, if not their self-control and self-respect,” said Rep. Guinta, Manchester, New Hampshire’s former mayor. In addition to cosponsoring CARA, he introduced legislation to improve prescription pill monitoring and to expand access to the life-saving overdose medication Narcan. He said he expects the House and Senate to soon agree on a version of CARA.

“When I was chief executive of New Hampshire’s largest city, I had to make decisions about where to send limited funds. Spreading opiate and heroin abuse is a problem that commands our immediate attention,” he said. In 2015, the House unanimously adopted Rep. Guinta’s amendment to increase funding to special drug courts.

Appropriations Chairman Rogers invited Rep. Guinta to speak at the National Prescription Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, this month. The Congressman will travel to the southern border in April to investigate Mexican cartels smuggling heroin into the U.S. as far north as New Hampshire.

“We must provide our law enforcement officials adequate support to get these drugs off our streets,” said Rep. Kuster. “We must also ensure that our treatment providers, physicians, and care givers have all the resources they need to provide prevention, recovery, and long-term treatment services to Granite Staters who need help.”