Beech Tree News Network

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives today passed the Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers Act (H.R. 5327), a bill Congressman Brett Guthrie (KY-02), vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, introduced earlier this year to combat the ongoing national opioid crisis. The Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers Act passed the House by a bipartisan vote of 383 to 13.

The current opioid addiction treatment system in the United States is fragmented, with most facilities only offering one specific type of treatment. The Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers Act would establish a grant program for treatment facilities to offer all FDA-approved treatments for opioid use disorder, as well as to provide residential rehabilitation, recovery housing, and community-based and peer recovery support services.

“In every county of the Second District, I continue to hear about the awful effects of our nation’s opioid crisis,” said Guthrie in speech on the House floor this afternoon. “Each story is a little different but they all are heart wrenching due to the deadly effects of opioid use disorder and addiction. Right now, most patients are going to the center that is most convenient to them, but those centers might offer only one type of treatment. What if that treatment doesn’t work for that person? That’s why I introduced the Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers Act – so that people can show up at one facility and have full wrap around treatment services and succeed in beating addiction.”

Guthrie introduced the Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers Act with Congressman Gene Green (D-TX), ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, along with Congressmen Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) and Larry Buschon, M.D. (R-IN).