CDC commits 20mn to help states fight prescription opioid overdose epidemic

According to an announcement made yesterday, the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has launched a new program called Prescription Drug Overdose: Prevention for States.

The program has been designed for helping states to bring an end to the unremitting prescription drug overdose epidemic and is a part of the Opioid Initiative launched by the US Department of Health & Human Services. Through this program, the CDC will be investing hefty amounts in 16 states and provide them with the expertise and resources they would require for preventing overdose deaths due to prescription opioids.

According to information offered by the CDC, the program will build upon the organization’s Injury Prevention and Prevention Boost & Core Violence programs. Using a really competitive application procedure, CDC has picked a total of 16 states each of which will receive funds through its Prescription Drug Overdose: Prevention for States program.

The names of the beneficiary states are: California, Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska, Kentucky, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Utah, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Vermont.

According to Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell, having a multifaceted approach is extremely important for fighting the prescription drug overdose epidemic. She feels that states would play an extremely vital role in making CDC’s efforts for preventing overdose deaths successful.

http://www.thehoopsnews.com/2015/09/04/7969/london-clinic-reveals-identities-of-780-hiv-patients-inquiry-launched/

Burwell added that the funding offered by the CDC will allow states to improve their ability of tracking the problem, working along with insurers for assisting providers in making informed decisions when prescribing a particular medication and taking proper actions for combating the epidemic.

For the financial year 2015, CDC will be paying the 16 states a sum of $20 million. For the next four years, the organization has planned to give these states an amount between $750,000 and $1 million as annual awards.

The states will get the funds to:

  • Improve the PDMPs (prescription drug monitoring programs).
  • Educate both providers and patients about risks associated with prescription drug overdose.
  • Prevent prescription drug overdose in communities nationwide.
  • Work with professional providers, insurers, and health systems for helping them in making informed decisions regarding prescription painkillers.
  • Respond to all emerging and new drug overdose issues by means of innovative projects, which may include the development of fresh communication campaigns and surveillance systems.

The CDC will also allow states to use the funds for:

  • Understanding and responding to the rise in the number of deaths caused by heroin overdose in a better way.
  • Investigating the links between heroin use and prescription opioid abuse.

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  • Overreach and over prosecution by prosecutors,(both state and federal) Mostly on drug laws is the number one problem within our justice system. Their methods have become so underhanded and unscrupulous that no justice or civil system nor person can long tolerate or withstand them. Their ability to compel and manipulate jury’s and to extort confessions and testimony has completely removed justice from within the justice system.they should all be required and held to a much higher standard.The same as judges or higher.At present, they are held, only, to very low standards,no more than any ambulance chaser yet are allowed to make decisions of national import.This allows villains and tyrants to flourish, all hiding behind legal status. Many use their office only to play politics. The protection of our Civil and Human Rights are supposed to be protected by these louts.Instead they completely ignore their responsibility. Most should be tarred and feathered before being ran from town.At the very least, most should be brought before the board and dis-barred on ethical grounds for total disregard and subversion of our Civil Rights as well as incompetent irresponsibility.The Boards who are supposed to censer or control these villains need to be removed for inaction

    • It is the same for tobacco caffeine or any other drug given to any of our young people or children. To do so is criminal and shows complete incompetence. But I am not a child I do not need you or anyone else to do my thinking for me.

      • sorry caffee nor any of that ruins not only the addicts life but many around her or him…..I know 13 year old heroin addicts this day..i also know 79 year old heroin addicts..they say hidden and yet they are all around….the word criminal or imcompetence doesn’t sooth that drug hunger which is why straight people always lose the war…always…..fools.

  • look for old photos of famers in the late 1800s or early 1900s with large families with lots of kids…now look closely at each of the childrens eyes…notice the black circles and the sunken faces…their mothers would give them opium to fight the hunger and everyday childish behavior..opium has been an epidemic in the usa for over one hundred years…the war in afganistan was over opium, the Mexican border is about opium, the native and population under twenty five is at risk of lifelong addiction, empty and worthless……mental illness is the number one enemy of freedom and social freedom, and drug addiction leading the way….ignore it, we are great at that…what happens when you ignore a problem? it will change everything around and you wont know why….wake up usa…..

    • You do realize that those wars you mentioned weren’t to stamp out opium use or destroy production but instead to seize it for our own uses..right ? I’m assuming that’s the point you were trying to make because it sure as hell wasn’t to end the opium trade at all. As for depression you mentioned before ,there seems to be no problems at all getting some sort of mood enhancer or antidepressant in this nation and much of it without proper monitoring of those drugs.

      • you wont change human behavior… I am familiar with the mental illness side of this country I am an advocate and yes both the mid east wars and the southern border are about opium, not to you not now in the public eye, but twenty thirty years from now, it will be THE WAR..you pretend addicts are a sub culture and not a problem like petroleum and religion….sorry, you are plainly blind to change the argument to authority not having a clue…no…of course not….and as for monitoring..what makes you think anyone has the right to tell any other person not to take a shit? clearly you are way off on both points….but the enthusiasm is nice….just realize the world you think you see simply has been taken, decades ago….actually this country has lost the young mind battle in the seventies and the rule of the day is to deceive in the name of whatever….good try….read a bit and try again.

    • sure and you think truth is someone else..ha what dunce…wake up fool….the usa mostly housewives bought enough opium between 1890 and 1930 to break the usa…hear of the depression? its funny when so many are raped and od and murdered and people think captain kagaroo is their leader….so what are you…twenty, thirty….ignorance happens at that age too…..

  • And the answer for many providers seems to be ..Stop prescribing pain meds even for those with chronic pain who may have never showed any signs of abuse in the past.Treat everyone like a criminal etc..etc.Many people are responsible with their pain meds and sadly its a minority who do abuse them and sell them etc.The main reason for a rise in heroin related deaths is because of the above mentioned ..Doctors turning away many responsible patients with severe or chronic pain which in many cases leads some to the black market because they’re in pain and aren’t getting help from their doctors because the doctors are too afraid to fight the feds or fight for their patients.Now there are heroin tabs which are heroin in pill form making it more appealing for those who are accustom to taking pain meds in pill form and wouldn’t dare think of the other ways of using the drug.For the doctors who do care they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.However its much easier for them to turn away someone in pain and therefore aren’t counted as a statistic on their record.I’m all for saving lives considering I had a loved one die of an overdose and in his case it was death by doctor.Long story on that one but basically because of the privacy acts ,doctors weren’t allowed to see what the others were prescribing him and didn’t account for medication reactions.After his primary found out what happened to him she quit medicine altogether out of guilt and disgust.One of the many meds he was on was a host of depression medications which account for more deaths which they don’t seem to want to factor in.As a matter of fact most mass shootings,many of which grabbed national headlines ,involved the person in question being on some sort of anti depression med or “mood stabilizer”. Why aren’t we hearing more about this in the news or seeing some sort of major backlash against reckless and in many cases needless prescriptions being given out like candy ? As a matter of fact after a year from hell in which I lost my brother I had severe depression which led me to speak with a counselor-NOT a psychiatrist,who issued me a prescription for an antidepressant which changed my personality in many ways.During the course of the next two years,nobody seemed to care about how it may be affecting me nor did they require follow up questions to see if it was working for me.Instead they just kept refilling it,no questions asked.I decided after losing massive sleep and seeing it change my personality,enough was enough and kicked the meds myself.At one point I used to hear explosions in my head and had severe night sweats and hardly ever remembered having a normal dream cycle.When I notified my primary that I took myself off of those meds he said I shouldn’t have done that but then congratulated me,which I found odd.Afterwards I had several other doctors ask me if I wanted to go back on them because I seemed irritable.I said no thanks because I knew it was my slipped vertebra that made me irritable which required major surgery-not a psych med.Yes I’m irritable because Ive had one lousy experience after another with the medical system and I wonder how it is some of these people manage to stay employed.If there is to be a crack down lets start with the meds that cause people to go nuts ,and yes crack down on the doctors handing out pain meds like candy when its not needed but leave the average responsible person alone and quit treating us all like children.The war on drugs was a joke from day one because there never really was a war on drugs but instead our government made illegal deals with drug cartels.Oh and how about those poppy fields in Afghanistan that the Taliban wanted destroyed but instead we took them over and have troops guarding them for the big pharmaceutical companies ?? Once again things you won’t see in the news but if you know people who’ve been there and done that ,it opens your eyes a bit.