Political Quotes

“The chart that is being set up next to me here depicts graphically one of the most sickening trends in terms of an increasing cause of death in the United States, which is heroin and opioid overdoses. On the top, the map shows data from 2004 from the Centers for Disease Control, when 7,500 Americans lost their lives to overdose deaths. In 2014, that number has grown to 27,000. The red shaded area is high-intensity areas of death of up to 20 per 100,000 in the population. The blue is 10 or less. And in 2014, as you can see, the red is slowly but inexorably taking over the entire country. This is a crisis which, again, affects every part of our country, whether it is rural, suburban, or urban. It affects Republican districts. It affects Democratic districts. And it is time for our Nation to recognize that this needs to be treated the same way we would any natural disaster or public health emergency in the country. In 2016, we know these numbers are, in fact, going to get worse. The Office of Chief Medical Examiner in the State of Connecticut released their 2015 numbers a few weeks ago, and the number grew in the State of Connecticut by 20 percent, to 723 deaths in 2015. Just this morning in the local press in southeastern Connecticut, a 25-year-old was found dead in a motor vehicle on Route 12 outside the Groton Navy Base, and a young man, an 18-year-old, was found dead in Norwich just a couple of days ago.…”