Obama signs into law opioid addiction Bill to protect newborns

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama signed into law a measure that pledges greater efforts to protect drug-dependent newborns and assist their parents.

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act also stresses drug treatment and overdose prevention to help stifle the nation’s heroin and opioid drug epidemic.

Obama said in a statement that 78 Americans die from opioid overdose every day, and noted that the legislation included only modest steps to address the epidemic.

“I am deeply disappointed that Republicans failed to provide any real resources for those seeking addiction treatment to get the care that they need,” Obama said.

“In fact, they blocked efforts by Democrats to include US$920mil (RM3.75bil) in treatment funding.”

The Bill was passed nearly unanimously by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Efforts to enforce provisions to protect newborns and help their parents come in response to a Reuters investigation last year titled “Helpless & Hooked”.

The new law requires the federal government and every state to follow a 2003, routinely ignored, that called on states to require hospitals and social services to report, track and assist drug-dependent newborns and their families.

Often, that was because medical workers feared involving child protective services, as the existing law requires.

Reuters found more than 110 babies since 2010 died under preventable circumstances. — Reuters