WASHINGTON, D.C. — Legislation that a member of West Virginia’s Congressional delegation characterized as “turning the tide” in the fight against drug addiction in the Mountain State and across the U.S. is packed with actions on multiple fronts.

“There’s probably no issue that’s more challenging to our public health and public safety in our time than the drug crisis,” said 3rd District Congressman Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.).

Of the passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, a package of bills also known as CARA, Jenkins said, “Congress has weighed in like it has never weighed in before to address this most challenging issue. It’s weighed in in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion.”

The legislation, which President Barack Obama was expected sign, advanced out of the U.S. Senate with a 92-2 vote last week.

The effort was nearly derailed as U.S. Senate Democrats pushed for an immediate vote on funding for the programs authorized in the bill. Republicans said funding was a matter for the appropriations process later this year.

Congress is currently in recess.

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a CARA supporter, called on President Obama to move “swiftly” to sign, what she called, “critical legislation.”

“I have worked tirelessly with my colleagues in the Senate, with health and law enforcement professionals in West Virginia, and with individual families and advocates to develop a spectrum of solutions to curb this epidemic,” Capito said in a statement.

“This bill reflects those efforts and includes several provisions that will bring us closer to reversing this trend.”

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) agreed, but said “real resources” must be put behind the CARA programs in order for them to be effective.

“The federal government’s approach to this tragic trend (in overdose deaths) needs to be comprehensive, which includes funding for programs and treatment centers across the country,” he said in a statement.

In general, CARA does the following:

– Expands prevention and educational efforts, particularly aimed at teens, parents and other caretakers, and aging population, to prevent the abuse of methamphetamines, opioids and heroin, and to promote treatment and recovery.

– Expands the availability of naloxone to law enforcement agencies and other first responders to help in the reversal of overdoses to save lives.

– Expands resources to identify and treat incarcerated individuals suffering from addiction disorders promptly by collaborating with criminal justice stakeholders and by providing evidence-based treatment.

– Expands disposal sites for unwanted prescription medications to keep them out of the hands of children and adolescents.

– Launches an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program to expand best practices throughout the country.

– Launches a medication assisted treatment and intervention demonstration program.

Strengthens prescription drug monitoring programs to help states monitor and track prescription drug diversion and to help at-risk individuals access services.

“This is so comprehensive,” Jenkins said of the reach of the legislation which involves many federal agencies.

Jenkins’ Nurturing and Supporting Healthy Babies Act is also part of CARA.

It requires the Government Accountability Office to report on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), the result of a newborn’s exposure to opiates in the womb. Newborns with NAS require specialized care that can sometimes be five times greater than the costs of treating other babies, Jenkins said.

In 2014, West Virginia lead the U.S. in drug overdose deaths, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers and heroin, were the main causes of those overdose deaths.