On the recordMay 10, 2016
I want to thank Congresswoman Kuster and Congressman Guinta for taking a leadership role in this epidemic. This is something that has gone across the country. We have seen huge rises in the Northeast and across the Midwest, but this is something that is not immune from any one of our districts. I, along with Representatives Esty and Costello, are sponsoring legislation to establish education programs for both consumer awareness and practitioner training to get at the root of most of these addictions. As a police officer for 18 years with the LAPD, I have seen an awful lot of drug addiction and drug addiction problems in our streets. We saw rock hit our streets many, many years ago, and that is still infiltrating many of our urban areas in America. Then we moved on to other drugs like meth and heroin. Heroin was always one of those kind of taboo drugs, but today it is not. We have seen a lot of the kids that get addicted because they got a sports injury or they got some other issue and have gotten a prescription drug, and they have moved on from the oxys when they have run out of these opioids and they have moved on to heroin. So it has not become a taboo drug. It has actually been a new drug that they can continue on their addiction; and they don't understand what it is doing to their body, and they don't understand the addictions that are hurting them and, in some instances, killing them.…
