Alex Lowney: Grateful to Shaheen's support of addiction prevention act

To The Daily Sun,

I am writing to thank Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for her support for the NOPAIN Act and implore Sen. Maggie Hassan to please join the rest of her colleagues in supporting this important and bipartisan piece of legislation that can help save lives.

The Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction in the Nation Act or NOPAIN will ensure safe, non-addictive medications and therapies are made available to patients who undergo outpatient surgical procedures. Far too often these patients have been prescribed powerful and addictive opioids following those procedures when a lesser prescription or even over-the-counter pain medicines, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen, could do the trick.

As a registered nurse, I’ve seen more than my fair share of overdoses, and too often they are young adults who have access to excess pills that are leftover and forgotten about. In 2020, nearly 20% of opioid overdose deaths in New Hampshire were among children and young adults under the age of 29. I am not only a nurse, but a mother, and that statistic scares me. I can’t imagine being on the receiving end of a call informing me that my child has died from an overdose.

Congress can do something about this problem and prevent some of those painful calls from being placed, but as we’ve seen every vote matters and we need Sen. Hassan’s support to get this done.

Alex Lowney

Laconia