NACDS shares comments with White House opioid abuse commission
ARLINGTON, Va. — Steve Anderson, president and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, has submitted comments to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, the organization announced Monday.
Anderson stressed pharmacy’s role as “a working partner” with whom the government could collaborate to find solutions, as well as the difficulties pharmacists face in serving patients’ needs while meeting Drug Enforcement Administration requirements to evaluate the legitimacy of the use of controlled substances.
“The ongoing opioid abuse problem concerns both legal and illicit substances; that is, prescription opioids as well as heroin and illegal fentanyl analogs,” Anderson said. “NACDS and the chain pharmacy industry are committed to partnering with law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and others to work on viable strategies to prevent prescription drug diversion and abuse, including prescription opioids. … Since chain pharmacies operate in almost every community in the U.S., we support policies and initiatives to combat the prescription drug abuse problem nationwide. We believe that holistic approaches must be implemented at the federal level. We are pleased that we are helping to solve the opioid abuse problem.”
Anderson identified several areas where opportunities exist to enhance existing strategies for preventing and reducing opioid abuse, including around patient and provider education, prescription drug monitoring plans for controlled substances, the use of electronic prescribing, promoting naloxone access. He also highlighted such areas as unused medication take-back and disposal efforts and the targeting of illegal Internet drug sales as areas to help address the problem.
Among the areas Anderson noted as available for collaboration was legislation. He highlighted the fact that NACDS has supported the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which addresses issues of abuse while also ensuring access for legitimate patients. He also noted that Health and Hyman Services Sec. Tom Price has not yet submitted a report identifying the largest obstacles to legitimate patient access, missing the deadline for its submission.
“Pharmacists take their role in helping to ensure safe use of medications very seriously — but they cannot do it alone,” Anderson said. “We support a collaborative approach to curb prescription drug abuse and preserve patient access to their medically-necessary pain medications. We believe that there are a variety of ways to help curb prescription drug diversion, and chain pharmacies actively work on many initiatives to reduce this problem.”
To read Anderson’s full comments to the commission, click here.