Kaine, Others Target Drugs
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is part of a bipartisan effort to pass a “good Samaritan” law for people administering a drug that can prevent an opioid overdose.
The former Virginia governor, along with Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., introduced the Opioid Overdose Reduction Act on Wednesday, according to a news release from the senators.
The release states that it would exempt from civil liability individuals such as family members, first responders, overdose program employees and volunteers, and heath care workers who are educated in giving drugs like naloxone — more commonly known as Narcan — in the event of an overdose.
“The good news is that the naloxone treatment is a very, very highly successful lifesaving treatment that can be administered,” Kaine said in a Friday afternoon interview. “It doesn’t have serious negative side effects.”
But, the thought of a possible lawsuit might make some people wary about administering it, Kaine said.
That’s the purpose behind such “good Samaritan statutes,” he said.
Former Republican 10th District U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf discussed the heroin problem with Kaine last year.
“Frank Wolf first told me about this and that he had been working on kind of a regional stakeholders group to look at it,” the senator said.
Kaine, fellow U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and numerous congressmen signed a letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe last June urging him to commission the task force.
In 2014, 33 people died of heroin overdoses in the northern Shenandoah Valley — 15 in Frederick County, six each in Winchester and Warren County, and two each in Front Royal and Shenandoah and Page counties, according to the website roadtorecovery.info, which was launched in November by the local Addiction Action Committee to connect addicts with resources to help them.
That figure is up from 21 fatal heroin overdoses reported in the region in 2013 and one reported in 2012.
As of Wednesday, there had been eight fatal heroin overdoses in the region since Jan. 1, according to Winchester police.
Road to Recovery reports one death each in Winchester, Strasburg and Front Royal and Frederick, Clarke and Warren counties so far this year, along with two deaths in Shenandoah County.
“We’re seeing it all over the state,” Kaine said. “[In] southwest Virginia, it’s epidemic.”
Kaine participated in training last summer in Russell County to learn how to administer Narcan. He said many of the attendees were friends or family members of addicts.
More people now die of drug overdoses than in car crashes, Kaine said.
The release states that 120 people die of overdoses from prescription drugs each day nationwide, and that the death rate from heroin overdoses nearly quadrupled from 2000 to 2013.
Previously, heroin was being manufactured from poppies grown in Asia, Kaine said.
“But now they’re increasingly growing [them] in Colombia and Mexico,” he said. “The increased production really dropped the price.”
So, more drug users are switching to heroin, he said.
“Marijuana shipments across the border are down, but heroin is up,” he said. “It’s very, very dangerous. People don’t know what the quality is. It’s just a really grim situation.”
The problem is so serious that in last year’s State of the State address, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin devoted his entire talk to heroin, said Kaine, who was governor of Virginia from 2006-2010.
“I would talk about 15 issues [in the State of the State], but this was at such an epidemic level in Vermont that the governor just decided to spend one whole State of the State speech talking about it,” he said. “It doesn’t know region, it doesn’t know socioeconomic class.”
At the state level, a similar bill was passed during this year’s General Assembly session at the behest of Attorney General Mark Herring, Kaine noted. It’s awaiting McAuliffe’s signature.
Kaine said a Virginia company, Kaleo, has invented a sort of fail-safe way to administer naloxone through an injection device similar to an Epi-Pen.
“Virginia, we have a problem, but we also have some good local businesses that are trying to deal with it, and we have some companies that are coming up with some new technologies to make the administration of naloxone even easier,” he said.
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