Minnesota renews push for tax on prescription opioids
(Reuters) – Citing rising opioid fatalities, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton on Wednesday announced a renewed legislative proposal to tax prescription opioid pills to help fund treatment.
Dayton’s proposal would levy a one-cent tax on drugmakers for each milligram of active ingredient in a prescription pain pill, generating an estimated $20 million a year for prevention, policing, emergency response and treatment.
Dayton last fall blamed “special corporate interests” for blocking a similar proposal in 2017.
“We must take decisive action in this legislative session to reduce abuses and to ensure that all Minnesotans suffering from these addictions receive the treatment and support they need,” Dayton, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The efforts come as a growing number of states and counties are suing opioid manufacturers to recoup costs of a worsening epidemic. In December, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the U.S. rate of drug overdose deaths in 2016 grew 21 percent from the prior year.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a national trade association, said the proposal could divert money for developing new non-opioid painkillers and medication-assisted addiction treatments.
“It’s clear that this proposed tax ignores all the factors that led to this public health crisis, including the substantial influx of heroin, counterfeit fentanyl and other illegal drugs, and fails to recognize existing funding available for treatment, prevention and other important programs to help communities,” association spokesman Nick McGee said in a statement.
Dayton’s proposed measure, part of a larger effort to boost treatment, access to overdose medications and enforcement, will be debated in the legislative session starting Feb. 20.
Andrew Kolodny, an opioid policy researcher at Brandeis University, said the tax is a good way to increase treatment
“I don’t think we’re going to see overdose deaths start to come down until we do a better job of expanding access to effective outpatient treatment,” he said.
Filed under: General Problems
Whenever I’m in severe pain and have to use non medication methods to try to function throughout the day I dream of having this man Kolodney tied up and beating him with a baseball bat to within an inch of his life and I’ve never been an unbalanced sort of person, I guess with all the people he and PROP have hurt I’m probably not alone.
Seems like they’re so busy worrying about legal prescriptions that they’ve forgotten,accidentally on purpose, that the real problem is illicit drug use!
Someone needs to regulate these regulators.