How to get help: An opioid addiction resource guide
Both Portman and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, made the bill a major priority to help combat a national crisis. Just last year, nearly 30,000 people died because of addiction to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
The House last week approved the same bill by a vote of 393-to-3. In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Brown predicted Trump “will sign it right away.”
“This legislation is a turning point,” Portman said in a floor speech shortly before the vote. “It is a glimmer of hope,” adding it will end the “loophole that you can send this deadly poison” of fentanyl through the mail.
In a floor speech Tuesday evening, Brown said there “isn’t a community in Ohio that hasn’t been touched by the addiction epidemic, and we are doing all we can to fight it.”
The bill includes a section drafted by Portman that would require all packages being shipped into the U.S. from overseas to include advanced electronic data on exactly what’s inside the package and who is shipping it.
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Senate Republican candidate Jim Renacci, who is challenging Brown next month and is a House member from Wadsworth, voted for the same bill last week.
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The measure provides the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with the power to insist drug companies sell packages of opioids in smaller doses to discourage physicians from prescribing larger amounts.
In addition, the bill would allow Medicaid dollars to pay the costs of in-patient drug-abuse treatment.
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