U.S. Senator Joe Donnelly is urging additional support to combat what he says is a nationwide opioid and heroin epidemic.
Indiana’s Democratic Senator wrote a letter to the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, and several subcommittees with the goal of combating the problem in the 2016 fiscal year budget.
According to a press release from Senator Donnelly’s office, prescription drug and heroin deaths have been rising in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control says Opioid deaths have increased by 250-percent between 2001 and 2013 while heroin deaths have seen an increase of 39-percent.
This isn’t the first time Donnelly has attempted to implement solutions to help control drug use problems in the country. In February, Senator Donnelly introduced legislation to combat drug trafficking.
He says federal dollars will assist states and cities with the problems while filling funding gaps that those bodies are undertaking.
