AG Zoeller, Rx Task Force to Host 6th Annual Prescription Drug Abuse Symposium on Oct. 28, 29

Two-day conference will focus on new challenges to Rx drug addiction in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller will host the sixth-annual Indiana Prescription Drug Abuse Symposium next week on Oct. 28 and 29 to focus on new challenges in the fight against prescription drug abuse, particularly in light of unprecedented HIV and Hepatitis C outbreaks this year triggered by intravenous abuse of diverted medications.

This year’s symposium, titled “In the Trenches, A Community Approach,” will offer sessions on arming communities with strategies for curtailing abuse and providing treatment. The annual two-day symposium is the pinnacle event for the Indiana Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force, which Zoeller founded in 2012 and which he co-chairs alongside Dr. Joan Duwve, chief medical officer for the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH).

“This year, a small community in Southern Indiana saw an unprecedented spike in HIV infections and became the face of the national opioid epidemic,” Zoeller said. “This crisis was in addition to reports that show prescription drug abusers are turning to heroin, and the continued rise in heroin overdose deaths. Though the state’s efforts to stem the flow of prescribed opioids into communities are working, we now have new challenges to address in our ongoing battle to reduce abuse in Indiana and save Hoosier lives.”

According to a 2015 ISDH report, the number of heroin overdoses in Indiana more than doubled from 2011 to 2013. A 2014 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that approximately three out of four new heroin users report having abused prescription opioids prior to using heroin.

Setting record attendance each year, the Indiana Prescription Drug Abuse Symposium is the largest statewide collaboration of professionals from local, state and federal agencies, academia, clinicians, pharmacists, treatment providers, counselors, educators, state and national leaders, and advocates impacted by prescription drug abuse.

The two-day symposium will feature several prominent speakers including the nation’s “drug czar,” Michael Botticelli, who is acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Other speakers include Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams, and Attorney General Zoeller.

Symposium sessions will cover the following topics among others:

• Lessons learned from the Scott County HIV crisis
• Naloxone (opioid overdose antidote) training
• Opioid abuse prevention strategies targeting youth
• Opioid addiction in vulnerable populations
• Syringe exchange programs

A full agenda for this year’s symposium is available here. Additional symposium information is available at http://www.in.gov/bitterpill/symposium.html.

“Every community in Indiana has been touched by opioid misuse, addiction and overdose. Opioid misuse is preventable, opioid addiction is treatable, and opioid overdose is reversible,” Dr. Joan Duwve said. “This symposium is a way for all of us to come together to learn from one another, and from national experts, and then take what we’ve learned back to our local communities where families are struggling to keep children alive and get loved ones into treatment and recovery.”

Zoeller created the Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force in 2012 to reduce the abuse of controlled prescription drugs and decrease the number of deaths associated with these drugs in Indiana. The Task Force has grown to approximately 100 members including legislators, state and federal regulators, clinicians, pharmacists, treatment providers, educators and law enforcement. The Task Force holds quarterly meetings in addition to meetings held by the following individual committees: Education, Enforcement, INSPECT (state prescription drug monitoring program), Treatment & Recovery and Drug Take Back.

The Task Force has advanced a number of initiatives to reduce prescription drug abuse in Indiana. A key achievement was developing safer prescribing guidelines for physicians and working with the Legislature and Medical Licensing Board to adopt new rules consistent with the guidelines. Since these rules took effect in December 2013, there has been an 11 percent decrease in the amount of opioids prescribed in Indiana.

Significant legislative accomplishments include providing more oversight for pain clinic operators, stronger reporting requirements to the state’s prescription drug monitoring program INSPECT, greater access to addiction treatment services and to the overdose antidote naloxone, and – most recently – allowing communities with an HIV or Hepatitis C outbreak to establish syringe exchanges that discourage shared needle use and direct people to treatment options.

Other key legislative successes from the 2015 legislative session include ensuring that Medicaid and the state’s Healthy Indiana Plan cover addiction treatment services and appropriating new funds for the growth of mental health and addiction services.

For more information about policies advocated by the Task Force, click here.

Visit www.BitterPill.IN.gov for more information about the Indiana Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Task Force and resources for the public.

Note: Media will be invited to attend the symposium at no cost. Contact Molly Gillaspie at molly.gillaspie@atg.in.gov or 317-232-0168 for information about receiving a press pass.