A group of eight senators on Tuesday unveiled bipartisan legislation that would increase funding for addiction treatment and prevention by roughly $1 billion and impose a sweeping three-day limit on opioid prescriptions for initial pain treatment.
The CARA 2.0 Act, billed as the sequel to the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of late 2016, would be the most substantive action Congress has taken to address the opioid crisis since President Trump took office.
The legislation’s unveiling comes as Republicans in both chambers of Congress are ramping up their legislative efforts to address the opioids crisis. The two-year budget deal Congress passed earlier this year included $6 billion in extra funding to address the crisis in 2018 and 2019, but offered only broad outlines of how the funds would be used. Now, legislators, lobbyists, and policy advocates are hurrying to identify policies that could fit into that funding framework.
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