Silent Epidemic: Older Americans With Addiction Forsaken As Opioid Crisis Grips Nation

The many ramifications of the opioid epidemic on older adults range from a lack of beds in treatment facilities to a generational reluctance to seek help.

Stateline: Older Addicts Squeezed by Opioid Epidemic
As the nation’s opioid addiction epidemic expands, older adults in Maine and other states face mounting barriers to getting help for abuse of alcohol and opioid painkillers — not the least of which is finding they are squeezed out of scarce treatment facilities by younger people with prescription drug or heroin habits. (Vestal, 7/26)

“When Clifton Hilton decided to quit drinking this month, he called a residential drug and alcohol detoxification center in this coastal Maine city on a Friday afternoon and was told a bed was available for him. But by the time he arrived on a bus from Bangor the next morning, the bed had been taken.” Continue Reading

Excerpt from KHN Morning Briefing

Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) establishes a comprehensive, coordinated, balanced strategy through enhanced grant programs that would expand prevention and education efforts while also promoting treatment and recovery.

S.524/H.R.953. The bill passed the U.S. Senate on March 10, 2016, by a vote of 94-1.

Statement by the President on the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016 Read it Here

Brief Summary of Provisions of CARA

Expand prevention and educational efforts—particularly aimed at teens, parents and other caretakers, and aging populations—to prevent the abuse of methamphetamines, opioids and heroin, and to promote treatment and recovery.
Expand the availability of naloxone to law enforcement agencies and other first responders to help in the reversal of overdoses to save lives.
Expand resources to identify and treat incarcerated individuals suffering from addiction disorders promptly by collaborating with criminal justice stakeholders and by providing evidence-based treatment.
Expand disposal sites for unwanted prescription medications to keep them out of the hands of our children and adolescents.
Launch an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program to expand best practices throughout the country.
Launch a medication assisted treatment and intervention demonstration program.
Strengthen prescription drug monitoring programs to help states monitor and track prescription drug diversion and to help at-risk individuals access services.

Recovery Centers of America Volunteers at Facing Addiction’s Caucus at Democratic National Convention

The Caucus for Addiction Solutions will advocate for those suffering from substance use disorders

July 25, 2016

PHILADELPHIA–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In a continued effort to advocate for the millions of individuals suffering from behavioral health and substance use disorders, Recovery Centers of America, joins Facing Addiction as a key partner at the nonprofit’s Caucus for Addiction Solutions on Tuesday, July 26 during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

More local people now seek treatment for heroin than alcohol

SEATTLE — Heroin use continues to be a persistent public health problem in King County with more people for the first time seeking treatment for the drug than for alcohol, a new report says.

The annual report by the University of Washington’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute shows that 132 people died of heroin overdoses in King County in 2015, down from a high of 156 in 2014.

Still, the news on heroin is not good.

“Drug deaths and substance-use disorders continue to have a serious impact across King County,” said Caleb Banta-Green, senior research scientist and the report’s lead author. “At the same time, important interventions including substance-use disorder treatment, clean-syringe distribution, and use of the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone, are all increasing.”