Richard Hudson: “In 2018, more than 2 million Americans will suffer from addiction to prescription opioids. As I have traveled across my…”

“In 2018, more than 2 million Americans will suffer from addiction to prescription opioids. As I have traveled across my district, I have seen firsthand the devastating effects these drugs can have on families, friends, and loved ones. There is no barrier for these drugs. They strike at every level of society and across every geographic region. It touches all of us. In North Carolina, we have 4 of the top 25 worst cities for opioid abuse in the country. This truly is the crisis next door, and I am proud of the collective effort the House of Representatives has undertaken in a bipartisan way to address this epidemic. One important piece of this effort is a bipartisan bill I worked on with my colleague G.K. Butterfield, the SOUND Disposal and Packaging Act, which will direct the FDA to work with manufacturers to help reduce diversion, overprescribing, and abuse of schedule II or III opioids. I focused on packaging and disposal because it seemed everyone I talked to had sort of a lightbulb go off. So many of us have unused opioids in our medicine cabinets from surgeries, accidents, or hospital visits. With 70 percent of heroin addictions beginning in the medicine cabinet, attacking this oversupply with packaging on the front end and disposal on the back end was a logical place to start. We need to reduce the supply of opioids that find their way out of the medicine cabinet, and this legislation is the first step. I appreciate the leadership of my friend, G.K.…”