Rep. Larry Bucshon helping lead opioid battle in Congress

More than 75 percent of heroin users say they first got addicted to some sort of opioid painkiller before switching over to the illicit street drug that has surged in popularity again during the last several years, according to state health officials.

“It’s not like if you have surgery, you’re going to be addicted after you take these pain medications for a couple of weeks,” Bucshon said during an interview with the Courier & Press last week. “It’s when they continue to be prescribed for a period of months that you then start to get a pretty serious risk of addiction.”

Evansville, at first, seemed to be largely spared from the re-emergence. That changed last year.

Evansville had six deaths from the drug in 2015, its first such fatalities in a few years.

Warrick County also reported two suspected heroin deaths in 2015. This year, the number of suspected heroin overdose deaths is already at five in Evansville, including one last week, according to Steve Lockyear, the chief deputy of the Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office.

At least one of the 2016 deaths was of a person who got hooked on opioids after being prescribed for a legitimate reason.

The family of the 24-year-old man said he was injured in a car crash when he was 16 and had been hooked on painkillers ever since, though he had only switched to heroin in the last year or so.

Friends of one of the first overdose victims in here in Evansville in 2015, a 31-year-old man, previously told the Courier & Press that their friend started experimenting with drugs in high school but had always told them that he blamed his start on opiates on being treated with morphine for childhood cancer.

Even though heroin overdose deaths had been uncommon until recently, fatalities blamed on prescription pills have been high for years.

In 2015, there were 31 overdose deaths that were at least partly blamed on prescription opioids in Vanderburgh County, according to coroner office statistics. There were a total of 47 fatal drug overdoses reported in the county last year.

Further proof that opioid addictions can start as a legitimate painkiller prescription? Many of the deaths over the last few years attributed to prescription opioids have been of people who have valid prescriptions, Lockyear said.

“I’ve showed you our numbers: a vast majority (of the victims) were obtaining their drugs legally,” he said. “Now that’s starting to change, (but) most of them started getting them legitimately for a diagnosed condition.”

Earlier this week, Bucshon was appointed to the conference committee that will be working on finalizing language of proposals on the issue that will be sent to the White House by the House and Senate.

He called opioid addiction a public health issue and said that such additions often become a lifelong battle.

He authored one of 18 bills passed by House Republicans that try to address the issue in a variety of ways. Specifically, Bucshon’s bill is HR 4981 and is known as the Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Expansion and Modernization Act.

The proposal’s goals, according to Bucshon, are to: expand access to medication-assisted opioid addiction treatment by upping the cap of how many patients an addiction doctor can treat; ensure patients have access to a wider range of comprehensive treatment options; and help minimize the potential for narcotics being abused by someone other than to whom they’re prescribed.

The dire consequences of opioid addiction have also been recently spotlighted because of the death of musician Prince last month.

No official cause of death for the entertainment icon has been released, but it is widely speculated that friends of Prince had contacted a California doctor who specializes in opioid treatment to come meet with the star because of “a grave medical emergency.”

That doctor’s son was among those who found the musician’s body. Bucshon, a retired heart surgeon who said he always exercised caution when prescribing such drugs when he practiced, wants to remind the public that such addiction can affect anyone.

“When you have some celebrities who die of drug overdose, it also helps shine a bright light on what the problem is,” he said. “But the reality is that (opioid addiction) crosses socio-economic class. It crosses them all, and ages, too.”

He said he believes the medical community as a whole is doing what it can to help curb opiate addiction and is making strides in reducing prescriptions. However, he said doctors might feel like they are in a tough place because some medical reimbursements are tied to patient satisfaction. Bucshon said the Congress’ doctor caucus has met with officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently to address that very issue.

“If the physician looks for another alternative other than an opioid, it’s very possible that in the satisfaction score the patient fills out that they will not be satisfied and say they were not treated properly because they weren’t prescribed an opioid,” he said.

There have been recent crackdowns on overprescribing habits. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines for prescribers when it comes to using opioid painkillers for chronic pain. In those guidelines, officials urged doctors to use nonopioid therapy for pain outside of cancer treatments, palliative and end-of-life care. They also said when opioids are used, the lowest dosage possible should be prescribed and reminded providers that all patients on opioid painkillers should be monitored closely.

Bucshon said he and his staff are exploring options on possible public events in the 8th District that would address the opioid issue, but nothing has been planned.

Both Evansville and Terre Haute, main cities in the 8th District, showed up in the Top 20 nationally for opiate-based pain pill abuse among workers who have gotten such prescriptions through their work insurance plans, according to rankings put out by Castlight Health Inc. last month.

“There are a lot of things that can be done from an education standpoint (on the opioid issue),” Bucshon said.

One local official pushing such education is Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Nicholas Hermann. His office organized a symposium on heroin and opioid addiction last month. In addition to an opening presentation from Hermann and Lockyear, the day included multiple panels made up of health professionals and addiction counselors.

State health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams, who has been part of the national discussion on opioids thanks to last year’s outbreak of HIV in Scott County, was among three state officials who came from Indianapolis to speak at the event. The crowd of about 200 attendees also heard personal stories from local recovering addicts.

One of the people in the audience that day was Sarah Miller, executive director of the AIDS Resource Group in Downtown Evansville. Her organization works with those affected by HIV and hepatitis C, both of which can be spread when sharing needles for drug use. She is hopeful that the April event leads to more talks between officials and advocates on how to tackle prescription opioid and heroin addiction.

Miller’s group recently received a grant to host some discussions of its own, but dates have not been finalized, she told theCourier & Press this week.

Miller said she talked to several other attendees after Hermann’s symposium who are ready to do what they can to curb the problem.

“It was so well-attended, (and) there were so many people there,” Miller said. “So there is obviously an interest in trying to talk about this issue and trying to have a community response and a community discussion. But I kind of felt like people left it going ‘OK, so what do we do now? What is the next step?’ And I’m not sure that has been discussed.”