Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this Congress, I have the great privilege of cochairing the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control with the senior Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein. As more families across the country lose their loved ones to the scourge of opioids, the work of this caucus could not be more important. Today, people in our country are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car crash, but that hasn't always been the case. Our country's opioid abuse epidemic began in the 1990s when pharmaceutical companies promoted aggressive pain management, assuring the medical community that patients would not become addicted to these drugs. As a result, doctors began to prescribe more and more of them. We know what happened next. In the decades since, we have faced a steady increase in opioid abuse and have undertaken aggressive efforts to address this epidemic. There has been a concerted effort across the country to attack overprescribing of opioids in the hope of preventing more people from becoming addicted. But that alone cannot be our sole focus. Of the more than 70,000 overdose deaths in America in 2017, more than half were the result of heroin and synthetic opioids, not prescription drugs. The more we step up our efforts to limit prescription opioid diversion, the higher the demand for other illicit drugs, many of which are funneled into our communities by criminal organizations operating across international borders.…”