Michael Bennet: “I have to say what a joy it is to see the Presiding Officer in that Chair, and welcome to the Senate. I am here to talk…”

“I have to say what a joy it is to see the Presiding Officer in that Chair, and welcome to the Senate. I am here to talk about the Drug Quality and Security Act for a few minutes because at this moment of dysfunction in the Congress, we are at the brink of accomplishing something we have not been able to do for the last 25 years--the last quarter of a century. This bill, which we are about to send to the President, reforms our drug distribution supply chain, making it more secure and safer for families. It puts us on a path to electronic interoperable tracing at the unit level for drugs. It also raises the bar for wholesale distributors around the country and weeds out bad actors who find loopholes in the system to stockpile drugs and create shortages. This bill cannot come soon enough. Our Colorado pharmacies fill over 60 million prescriptions every single year, and the Coloradans who take these prescriptions, just like people all over the country, expect their medicine to be safe. The sad fact is that given the current laws in place, we cannot guarantee this. Pharmacists cannot determine with any certainty where a drug has been and whether it has been secured and safely stored on its way to a pharmacy. Right now you can get more data from a barcode on a gallon of milk than you can from one bottle of aspirin two aisles over in the store. The normal chain moves drugs from the manufacturer to a wholesaler to a pharmacy.…”