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Bray: Three bills passed in 2018 to help battle Indiana opioid crisis
The 2018 Indiana General Assembly has unleashed a three-pronged attack on the opioid problem plaguing the state, District 37 State Sen. Rodric Bray (R-Martinsville) told a full house gathered at the Farm Bureau office in Greencastle Saturday for the final Legislative Update program of the year.
Bray, one of three men who serve Putnam County in the Legislature, was the only legislator in attendance for the Putnam County Farm Bureau-sponsored morning program.
District 44 State Rep. Jim Baird (R-Greencastle) would have been making his farewell Legislative Update appearance since he is not seeking re-election and instead is running for the District 4 seat representing Indiana in the U.S. Congress. Also missing was District 24 State Sen. John Crane (R-Avon) who said last month he had a previous commitment and would miss the final program.
So it was up to Bray to carry the ball and comment on the matters that resulted in last week's wild finish in the Statehouse as a number of bills failed to pass because the clock ran out on lawmakers.
However, three bills that did pass are geared toward combating the opioid crisis with legislators trying an attack parlaying criminal law enforcement, treatment and ways to keep opioids off the street.
"Three flavors of bills, if you will, on these issues (opiates)," Sen. Bray said.
The law enforcement portion of the plan involves additional years being added to the sentence of anyone who sells drugs to a person who dies of an overdose, Bray said.
The treatment angle stems from reasoning that "a lot of these people (opioid users) don't necessarily belong in jail," Bray said, indicating they instead might benefit from the availability of more treatment facilities around Indiana.
The goal is to have a treatment facility within an hour's drive of anybody in the state, he said.
"We need treatment facilities, and we need them close and we need more of them," Bray stressed.
He noted that a lot of opioid users "begin their spiral downward at a doctor's office with legitimate pain."
However, when you continue to take the medication after the pain goes away, "it gives you a high," the veteran legislator said, relating a personal story in which Bray was prescribed hydrocodone for a pain issue, and after taking it for three days, felt like he "could take on the world."
Instead, he threw the pills away, not wanting to be trapped like others who have become addicted.
"People don't even know it's happening to them," Bray said.
As a way to help keep those physician-prescribed pills from getting into the wrong hands and ending up on the street for sale, the Legislature has approved a bill in which a doctor can now use a computer network to look up whether or not a patient has been getting opioids anywhere else across Indiana.
"It should help to keep some of that stuff off the street," Bray said, noting that some of those prescribed pills end up being sold because there is such a great demand for opioids.
Among bills that died when the midnight deadline arrived last Wednesday was a school safety bill, he related.
It was designed to take money from the Common School Fund and provide loans to school corporations to help make them safer.
"We couldn't quite reach terms before the midnight deadline," Bray said.
The General Assembly also failed to get a redistricting bill passed in 2018.
"The next time we have to redraw districts," Bray said, "is after the next census (2020), so we'll be redistricting in 2021."
Another bill that died in the Legislature is Senate Bill 356, designed to provide broadband grants for unserved areas of Indiana.
"High-speed Internet access is no longer just a fun thing," Sen. Bray said. "It's a legitimate need."
The bill would have provided ways of getting broadband into rural areas, encouraging companies "to get to that last mile," the senator said.
Bray noted that in his home county of Morgan, there is a subdivision near Mooresville that has no broadband access.
"It's literally just a mile outside Mooresville," he said, "so it's not a rural area at all, but it's all hills and ravines and they've basically got nothing."
The bill was slated to provide that in awarding grants, priority would be given to broadband projects proposed for unserved areas in which at least 85 percent of the total population is without access to qualified service. It, too, died without being called down for a final vote.