FED UP! Is going local with a rally in Covington Saturday.
Fed up consists of families who have been ripped apart by opioids and have lost loved ones to death or addiction.
The grassroots organization includes medical experts and advocates who believe the root cause of the problem is overprescribing and seek action from the federal government to bring the public health crisis to an end.
The FED UP! Coalition was formed in 2012 when several organizations from across the country joined forces with the shared concern that the federal government was failing to stem the rising tide of opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
The group was especially frustrated with what it perceived as the failure of FDA to correct a mistake in the Controlled Substances Act which had misclassified drugs containing hydrocodone as Schedule III and by FDA’s approval of a steady stream of dangerous new opioids.
Its first rally was held on Capitol Hill in the fall of 2013, about nine months after the FDA’s scientific advisory committee voted in favor of moving hydrocodone combination products into the Schedule II category. FED UP was frustrated that after 10 years of blocking the DEA’s effort to up-schedule hydrocodone products, it believed the FDA was failing to act on the recommendation of its advisory committee. Many of the speakers at the FED UP! Rally urged the FDA to listen to its scientists.
Three weeks after our rally, the FDA finally announced that it would support up-scheduling.
The second FED UP! Rally was held on the Washington Mall in 2014 and included a march to the White House. Speakers at the rally criticized the Obama administration for ignoring the worsening epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose deaths and for the perceived weak and ineffective response from some of its agencies.
On the day after the rally a small group met with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to directly share their concerns with Director Michael Botticelli. Several weeks later, the White House announced that it would seek $133 million in federal funding to assist states and counties in tackling the epidemic.
This year, FED UP! Expanded its efforts to include local rallies on or near International Overdose Awareness Day, which was August 31.
The Covington event is scheduled from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Hellmann Creative Center, located at 321 Martin Luther King Boulevard in Covington.
For additional information about the event, contact Sonya Sholler at 859-279-7578, or Julie Plageman at 859-816-7230, or click here. http://feduprally.org/ky-fedup2017/ .