DICKINSON, N.D. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today convened leaders in health care, treatment, and law enforcement from Dickinson and across the state to discuss the community’s concerns and efforts to effectively combat its growing opioid abuse epidemic, which is impacting most of North Dakota.

During her sixth meeting in North Dakota aimed at long-term solutions to tackle the state’s opioid addiction crisis, Heitkamp heard from community members, law enforcement as well as medical and treatment experts about their concerns with Dickinson’s ability to mount a robust and coordinated defense against opioid abuse going forward. Specifically, Heitkamp and community members shared their concerns about how the Republican health care bill, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed, would devastate critical resources for opioid treatment, including mental health and addiction treatment services. The Republican American Health Care Act would slash Medicaid, which is a critical resource for individuals receiving treatment for opioid abuse and addiction. It pays for over a third of all medication-assisted treatment nationwide and 17.4 percent of opioid treatment payments in North Dakota, according to the U.S. Joint Economic Committee.

Heitkamp also underscored to leaders and experts gathered at CHI St. Alexius Health – a medical facility which receives some Medicaid funding to supplement its services to high-need rural communities in the area – the importance of strengthening investments in access and workforce development to improve rural health care, as many such investments would go away under the Republican health care bill.

“During a time when families across our state are suffering from an opioid epidemic that slips silently into their homes, the last thing we need to do is weaken our defenses,” said Heitkamp. “But that’s exactly what the Republican health care bill would do by ripping away critical resources that support opioid addiction treatment. Today I heard from law enforcement officers who reinforced the message I’ve heard in five other cities across the state – that we can’t jail our way out of this problem, and we need to strengthen community addiction treatment resources. I heard from medical professionals at St. Alexius, already strapped for resources, who worry about their ability to continue offering critical services – and what the rural families who rely on their care will do. I heard from Dickinson community members who know what real tragedy and loss from opioid abuse looks like. Instead of fighting back – with the law enforcement, health professionals, and families that are battling this crisis to save their communities – the Republican health care bill would strip vital Medicaid resources for North Dakotans by the tens of thousands, and exponentially impact the already too-rare ability to access opioid treatment services across the state. Now is not the time to retreat – I certainly won’t. I’ll keep fighting for and with the North Dakota communities and rural health services so we can combat this epidemic together and win.”

Heitkamp has been working both on the ground in North Dakota and in the U.S. Senate to tackle the nation’s opioid addiction and abuse crisis – fatalities from which grew by 125 percent in North Dakota from 2013 to 2014. In March, Heitkamp gathered leaders in Minot to discuss challenges the community is facing in dealing with a major increase in opioid addiction and abuse, where she discussed her Budgeting for Opioid Addiction Treatment Act (LifeBOAT Act) she helped reintroduce to help make sure communities are equipped with the resources and tools they need to fight the growing crisis. It was the fifth meeting Heitkamp held on opioid abuse and addition across North Dakota.

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:

• Convening statewide community leaders to build a comprehensive approach to tackle opioid addiction and abuse: Since helping announce the LifeBOAT Act in Bismarck in 2016, Heitkamp has been gathering leaders across the state to hear directly from them about the challenges they are seeing in their hometowns. Over the past year, Heitkamp held listening sessions in Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo, Jamestown, and Minot to take on the opioid abuse epidemic and discuss the federal support these communities need to recover from and prevent opioid addiction. Heitkamp also joined Fargo’s City Commission for a meeting on a strategic response to the growing opioid addiction and abuse in the community.
  
  
• Bringing federal anti-drug crime leaders and resources to North Dakota: Heitkamp brought both 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 last May and Mercy Hospital in Devils Lake in March 2016 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 of recovery resources her bill works to provide.

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