More Than a Dozen Deaths in Grand Forks have been Tied to Opioids since 2014, while 51 Deaths Were Related to Overdoses in 2014 Alone

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Building on her legislative and on-the-ground efforts to combat North Dakota’s opioid abuse epidemic, Heitkamp today convened area leaders in Grand Forks to examine the challenges the region has faced as one of the first cities in the state to publicly deal with the deadly consequences of opioid addiction. The meeting is the first in a two-day listening series Heitkamp is hosting this month to identify lasting solutions that will help communities battle the state’s growing crisis.

Gathering public health professionals, law enforcement officials, treatment specialists, and educators in Grand Forks, Heitkamp discussed how the community has dealt with the impact of widespread opioid and heroin abuse. Together the group worked to identify ways to expand effective mitigation efforts like treatment and intervention, and to address existing challenges, including the state’s overwhelmed penitentiary system and lack of adequate treatment resources. Heitkamp has been working with leaders across the state as they look to implement a comprehensive, coordinated response on the ground, and today underscored the need for her bill – which she unveiled in Bismarck in May – to provide families like those in Grand Forks with the federal treatment and intervention resources they need to help their loved ones recover from this nationwide health epidemic.

In Grand Forks, more than a dozen deaths were tied to the opioid fentanyl in 2014, while 51 deaths were related to overdoses that year alone. Across the state, opioid-induced fatalities increased by 125 percent from 2013 to 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“Folks in Grand Forks know all too well how quickly and silently opioid abuse can overcome their loved ones and devastate their community – that’s why we need to work together to build a strong defense against this growing crisis,” said Heitkamp. “No family should fight this epidemic alone – and no one sector can effectively combat it. That’s why I gathered local leaders, law enforcement, medical and treatment professionals in Grand Forks to hear from them and identify their most effective strategies as well as their existing vulnerabilities. In the Senate I helped pass expanded tools for intervention and treatment – but that’s not enough. Families in Grand Forks need strong, comprehensive resources to battle opioid abuse as the public health and law enforcement crisis that it is – and I’ll fight to pass my bill that would provide the federal support they need to do it.”

Heitkamp’s series this week comes on the heels her appearance and engagement alongside Fargo’s City Commission last week on the city’s response to widespread opioid addiction, and her roundtable discussion with leaders in Bismarck in May where she unveiled her Budgeting for Opioid Addiction Treatment (LifeBOAT) Act. The LifeBOAT Act would take the next step in fighting this crisis by establishing a one-cent fee on each milligram of active opioid ingredient in prescription pain pills to help provide communities with the funding for resources they need to tackle addiction and promote more successful recoveries. Tomorrow, she will continue her series with leaders in both Fargo and Jamestown.

Across the country, 47,000 Americans lost their lives to the opioid and heroin abuse crisis in 2014. Since fighting North Dakota’s methamphetamine crisis as the state’s attorney general in the 1990s, Heitkamp has been working to stem the tide of addiction, abuse and illegal drug trafficking. On the federal level, Heitkamp has been working to address this issue by:

• Securing expanded tools to help tackle opioid addiction and abuse: This spring, Heitkamp fought for and helped pass bipartisan legislation in the U.S. Senate which the president has since signed into law to broaden tools available to law enforcement, first responders, and state prescription drug monitoring programs to address the national heroin and opioid abuse crisis. The bill also included legislation Heitkamp introduced which would close loopholes in our federal drug laws to stop foreign drug traffickers before their products reach our borders.

• Bringing federal anti-drug crime leaders and resources to North Dakota: Heitkamp brought both current and former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) directors to North Dakota – securing a national focus and strong resources to the state to help fight drug crime as a result.
• Convening statewide leaders to comprehensively battle drug crime and abuse: Heitkamp convened statewide experts and leaders to combat drug crime and abuse to serve on the growing task force of her Strong & Safe Communities initiative, which she initially launched in September 2014 in response to the state’s energy boom.
• Engaging statewide leaders on the front lines of North Dakota’s opioid addiction crisis: Heitkamp met with facility leaders, medical staff, and tribal leaders during her visits to MHA Nation’s Circle of Life Drug Treatment Center in May and Mercy Hospital in Devils Lake in March where she heard about the unique challenges they face in treating skyrocketing cases of heroin, methamphetamine, and opioid abuse on rural and tribal lands – often due to a lack in the types of recovery resources her bill works to provide.

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