With sights set on helping advance efforts to address the opioid epidemic, cooperative bank CoBank recently announced it will donate $500,000 to the Center for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention, which is housed in the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
The center, which recently opened at the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, will continue to host the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse and facilitate its efforts to work with partners to coordinate Colorado’s response to the opioid crisis. The new donation will be put toward the center’s research and education-based efforts to address the ongoing public health issue.
Dr. Robert Valuck, director of the Center for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and professor with CU Pharmacy, said in a CoBank news release that the center's team is grateful for the contribution. He said over-prescription of opioid medications is one of the root causes of the crisis.
"Well-meaning clinicians have prescribed billions of tablets in an effort to relieve their patients' pain,” he said. “The problem is that 'leftover' drugs are making their way from the medicine cabinet to family members, friends, and are sometimes diverted to the street. Research has also shown that abuse of prescription opioids can lead to the abuse of other drugs. Nearly nine in 10 users of illegal narcotics report that their drug use started out with opioid pain medications."
CoBank, a cooperative bank that works with vital industries across rural America, serves agribusinesses, rural infrastructure providers and Farm Credit associations.
Read more about the bank and its generous contribution in CoBank's news release.