Special to the Chronicle

South Carolina’s two senators joined a majority approving a massive opioid control bill this week.

Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott voted with 97 other senators to pass a bipartisan bill to combat the opioid epidemic through new research, treatment and help for affected families.

The bill includes more than 70 provisions and needs to be reconciled with one the House passed in June.

The bill requires doctors to discuss pain-management alternatives for those on Medicare.

Nearly 33% of those who use Medicare Part D’s prescription plan received a prescription opioid in 2017, federal officials said.

New data shows a slight decline in deaths in 2017 and early this year. But Julie Cole of the Courage Center in Lexington said that may be because deaths from other drug overdoses are up.

The bill also:

• Allows opioid prescriptions to be tracked to prevent misuse.

• Gives money for nonaddictive painkiller research.

• Requires foreign shippers to help U.S. officials target illegal synthetic drugs.

• Requires prescription opioids to be packaged in set amounts, for 3 or 7 days, for example.

• Improves detection and seizure of illegal drugs, such as fentanyl.

Overdose deaths from all drugs soared to a record 72,000 in 2017 up from 66.000 in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Opioid drugs have become deadlier with the largest number of deaths traced to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.