On the recordMarch 8, 2011
I rise today to introduce an important piece of legislation, the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 2011--an important bill that is needed to address the rapid increase in deaths and overdoses from methadone and other opioid prescription drugs in the United States. These deaths have hit my home state of West Virginia particularly hard, but I know that every State is struggling with this serious problem. In the 111th Congress, Senator Corker and I, along with our colleague, the late Senator Kennedy, introduced the Methadone Treatment and Protection Act of 2009 a similar piece of legislation that stemmed from a disturbing rise in deaths due to methadone, a synthetic opioid prescription drug that had been increasingly used for pain management. However, if not used correctly, methadone can be a powerful and deadly drug because it works differently than other painkillers. Methadone stays in a person's body for a longer period of time than the pain relief lasts so a person who does not know better might take far too much of the drug, possibly leading to respiratory distress, cardiac arrhythmia and even death.
