Opioid Crisis
Washington, DC – Today, President Obama proposed $1.1 billion in new funding to combat opioid abuse and heroin addiction throughout the United States. Congressman Bill Foster (IL-11) praised the increase in resources and called on Congress to adopt the proposal.
Foster with State of the Union guest Tim Ryan
Foster with anti-heroin advocate Tim Ryan at Overdose Awareness Day in Chicago.
Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Bill Foster (IL-11) and 12 bipartisan members of Congress wrote to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins asking him to examine the potential for abuse of home-brewed heroin.
Washington, DC – Today, Representatives Bill Foster (IL-11), Donna Edwards (MD-4), Elizabeth Esty (CT-5), and Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) reintroduced two pieces of legislation to combat heroin abuse, the Opioid Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and the Expanding Opportunities for Recovery Act.
Proposed budget includes $12 million grant to increase access to heroin overdose antidote
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Illinois, applauded President Barack Obama's budget proposal, which would increase resources for naloxone.
The president's budget proposal included a $12 million grant to increase access to naloxone, a prescription drug used to reverse heroin and other opioid overdoses, for communities in need.
Heroin abuse, and the deaths that have happened in Kane County because of it, have made for major headlines in the Fox Valley over the past few years.
On Wednesday, a group of local leaders got together to talk about how the fight against heroin is going, and what can be done to finally win the battle against the addictive drug.
Vicki Foley can trace her son Chris' drug use back to junior high, when he started smoking cigarettes.
The cigarettes led to marijuana and the marijuana eventually led to heroin.
The heroin led to his death.
"Heroin took his life," Foley said of the 27-year-old. "And it left a big hole in ours."
Foley, president of Chris Walk Against Substance Abuse, joined representatives of other community groups Wednesday at Community Christian Church in Naperville to discuss ways they are fighting the growing tide of heroin use from prevention to treatment.
The numbers are grim: 71 overdose deaths in DuPage and Will counties so far this year. Last year, Kane County tallied 27 heroin fatalities. Fifty percent of all addicts are doomed to die from their dependency.
Still, there is reason for hope.