In the final week of August, Georgia’s House Study Committee on Alternatives to Opioids for Pain Management got underway. Representatives heard presentations from stakeholders focused on reducing opioid abuse and mortality. The committee will meet a total of 4 more times before issuing a report on its findings. The next committee meeting will take place in September.

The first presentation was by Chris Fox, executive director of Voices for Non-Opioid Choices, a nonpartisan coalition dedicated to increasing access to non-opioid therapies and approaches for managing acute pain. He emphasized that opioid use disorder remains a widespread problem, 6.1 million in 2022, with high costs, $33 billion to medicare alone and over 81,000 deaths. He emphasized that many people initiate opioid use through legal prescriptions. The presentation included an overview of nonopioid pain management methods as well as national policy efforts to incentivize physicians to reduce unnecessary opioid exposure. Featuring among these efforts was the NOPAIN Act, which piggybacks on a 2019 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services policy to establish separate payments for non-opioid pain management in Medicare.

Dr. Chris Rustin, of Georgia’s Department of Public Health, presented state data on overdoses. He described the increasing role of fentanyl in overdose deaths, particularly in scenarios where fentanyl was mixed with other drugs. Georgia’s implementation of a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program coincided with a significant reduction in opioid prescribing. Dr. Rustin went on to discuss the Department of Public Health’s provision and distribution of naloxone, as well as community education efforts, aimed at preventing opioid related deaths.

The final report of the day was a team presentation by members of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). Their report included a broad description of anticipated funding allocations derived from money from various opioid settlements that compose Georgia’s Opioid Crisis Abatement Trust. The trust will distribute settlement funds at the state and regional level with the aim of achieving a set of strategic goals related to abuse prevention and treatment.