Gov. Tom Wolf held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to discuss the letter he had written to White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner—the President’ son-in-law—who has been tapped by the Trump administration to run point on heroin and opiate addiction countermeasures.

The letter expressed the governor’s concerns over the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and its potential repercussions to the ongoing battle against the addiction crisis in Pennsylvania.

In a continued effort to reduce the overprescribing of prescription pain medications, Governor Tom Wolf visited University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Montefiore Thursday to announce new prescribing guideline recommendations for the safe use of opioids in orthopedics and sports medicine. 

“The goal is to figure out how to balance the needs in subsiding and managing pain, but also the needs we have in preventing substance abuse disorders from turning into a death,” said Gov. Wolf during the press conference featuring state and local leaders, as well as former Pittsburgh Steeler Franco Harris. “We have come up with prescribing guidelines that try to address that balance.”

Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R-Washington) announced Wednesday she has introduced legislation that would require addiction treatment centers to adopt patient-centered best practices as a means to treat opioid addiction.

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Treatment Act—now Senate Bill 428—requires the treatment centers, often sources of a singular source of treatment, to provide a panoply of treatment options to meet the specific needs of a consumer seeking their help.

Officials at the state and local levels continued their focus on combating the opioid epidemic in a number of events held Wednesday.