Brown to DEA: Set quotas for painkillers

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has joined colleagues in sending a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), urging the agency to better prevent painkillers from flooding the market.

DEA has the authority to manage the amount of opioids drug companies can produce each year by setting quotas. The quotas ensure there is enough medication to meet legitimate needs of patients without overproducing drugs that can end up on the streets. Brown is urging DEA to enforce lower quotas in 2018 as part of ongoing efforts to address the opioid epidemic in Ohio.

Last year, the DEA heeded the senators’ call to address America’s opioid epidemic by reducing nearly all opioid quotas by 25 percent or more. This was the first reduction of its kind in over twenty years, but DEA-approved opioid production volumes remain troublingly high — including 55 percent higher oxycodone levels in 2017 than in 2007.

“Anyone paying attention to the opioid crisis knows we need fewer drugs on the market, not more,” said Brown. “DEA must do its part to crack down on the amount of opioids flooding the market.”

Between 1993 and 2015, the DEA allowed production of oxycodone to increase 39-fold, hydrocodone to increase 12-fold, hydromorphone to increase 23-fold, and fentanyl to increase 25-fold.

As a result, the number of opioid pain relievers dispensed in the United States has skyrocketed over the last two decades — from 76 million prescriptions in 1991 to more than 245 million prescriptions in 2014. The increase in opioid-related overdose deaths has mirrored the dramatic rise in opioid prescribing, with more than 33,000 deaths in 2015.

The senators also pressed the agency to improve transparency in its quota-setting process by providing an explanation of how it reaches a determination and publishing quotas granted to individual manufacturers of schedule II opioids.

In addition to Brown, the letter was also signed by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Angus King (I-Maine), Dianne Feinstein (D-California), Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin), Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada), Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire), Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), and Al Franken (D-Minnesota).