Patricia Perry
House Bill 248, Proponent Testimony
House Health and Aging Committee
November 18th, 2015
Good morning Chairwoman Gonzales, Vice Chair Huffman, Ranking Member Antonio and members of the House Health and Aging Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to share my support of House Bill 248. I am Patricia Perry, the mother of a child with Substance Use Disorder, his Drug of choice being Heroin. I am also an admin for the Support Group TAP(The Addicts Parent) United, and a resident of Newark, Ohio.
A little over 6 years ago, I found out that my son (now 32), was injecting heroin on a daily basis. I was shocked and lost and felt alone. When I reached out for help, answers were hard to come by. I continue with this battle, and today I am here to enlighten you about opiates in general.
Prior to my son’s jump to heroin, he had abused prescriptions opioids. Little did I know that when he was getting pills for a toothache or asking me for a Percocet for pain in his lower back he was misusing the medications to get high, and that would be just the beginning. I did not have any knowledge of what the future would hold,that it would later escalate to heroin, or the emotional, physical and financial costs we would be in experience at the hands of this addiction.
My son has been hospitalized 3 times that I know of for medical conditions related to his heroin use. He is missing a piece of his arm and his foot. He was in intensive care for 14 days on antibiotics with the thought that he may have to have open-heart surgery due to a valve being damaged that runs into his heart. This he still lives with. He had blood clots in his neck, which at any time could break apart and travel to his heart and kill him. He was put on a blood thinner. But you know what, you cannot shoot up on a blood thinner. So that did not last. He also has Hep C. He has overdosed 2 times that I know of and once with his girlfriend who died.
At the time he/we were going through this there was not much talk of treatment and/or assistance for recovery. Most people, doctors included just said “you can quit if you want to.” Well that is not true. It takes long-term treatment to achieve recovery. One treatment method is Suboxone, which my son has done occasionally. This too comes at a cost that ranges from $700-$1000 per month.
What do you think the cost of just those few things alone would be? How about the cost of that young lady’s life? They overdosed in a mall parking lot and she died. Is that cost worth the cost of making the abuse deterrent opioids? I think so and I am sure her family does. She too started out taking/snorting/injecting the pills.Would she and so many others still be here today had they had not been able to manipulate the prescription opioids in the very beginning? ADOs can and should play an important role in helping curb prescription drug abuse.
Furthermore, the additional access of ADO medication would likely make these prescriptions less desirable on the street, which could be very important for the safety and security of those who are prescribed them. For example, my father recently got diagnosed with cancer. I was with him at a doctor’s appointment whenthey prescribed him OxyContin. My first reaction was, oh no, not in the area he lives. I was not as worried about him potentially getting addicted to the prescription, as I was that someone would break in his home and kill him for the medication. In Vinton County, where my dad lives, we feel we cannot let it be known that he is battling cancer, because individuals would know that he would be prescribed powerful pain medications that are deemed desirable by addicts looking for a high. As a result, we believe sharing this information would put his life in more danger than the cancer.If abuse deterrent opioids (ADOs) were more readily prescribed there would be less of a demand for those types of pills, and he would be safer.
The ADO’s may be too late to deter my son’s opioid abuse and addiction, but he has a son, my grandson who is 14 years old. He deserves any and every chance that there is in life to not become addicted to opiates. These ADO’s could give him a better chance.
Thank you for your time and consideration of my testimony. I urge you to join me in supporting House Bill 248. I support this bill because I live the devastation that opioid addiction brings to a family. I have seen the loss of lives that started with pills. I want my grandson to have a chance. At this time I would be happy to answer any questions the committee might have.