The fact that Hamilton County has one of the lowest opioid death rates in East Tennessee doesn’t mean it’s not a problem here.
Indeed, a recent mapping tool of Appalachia, released by the National Opinion Research Center, shows that we are in the lower center of a belt that rises from central Mississippi through southern New York. While the heaviest concentration of opioid deaths in the belt is in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, 11 central and eastern Tennessee counties have high numbers as do two North Carolina counties, Cherokee and Graham, just across the border from the Volunteer State.
The Republican-led Congress pledged a record $4.6 billion to the crisis across the country in the budget signed Friday, but Democrats said what they always say in similar situations – it’s not enough.
The problem is no one knows what enough is or what it will take to stem the crisis.
Fortunately, Senate health committee chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., having overseen six bipartisan hearings on ways the government could be a better partner in the fight, put forth several legislative proposals Monday, only days after the budget was signed.
One would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to require drug manufacturers to package certain opioids in blister packs, allowing for a set dose. This, in theory, would allow doctors to write prescriptions for smaller numbers, preventing overprescription and extra pills from being sold or abused by someone else.
It also would allow opioids to be dispensed with safe disposal packaging or a safe disposal system that would help prevent the misuse of any unused portion of the prescription.
The second proposal would improve law enforcement authorities’ ability to find and seize illegal drugs at the border.
Among other things, it would improve coordination between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Customs Border Protection in the use of detection and testing technology with the goal of stopping new substances such as synthetic fentanyl from coming across the border.
What we don’t want to learn is that in six or nine months there is dithering about how to spend the money devoted to this crisis. By then, thousands more people will die, and the country won’t be closer to anything resembling assistance.
We appreciate Alexander’s attention to the crisis, not only because it disproportionately affects his native East Tennessee but also because action is infinitely more important than empty words.