Political Quotes

“in the fall of 2010 I came to this Chamber to speak about my growing concern of synthetic drug use in this country. Specifically, I raised concerns about a popular new drug known as K2, or Spice, and I learned about this myself for the first time because a constituent of mine by the name of David Rozga committed suicide. David killed himself shortly after smoking a package of the drug he and some friends bought at a local shopping mall. At the time, David's death in June 2010 was one of the first associated with what was a new and very dangerous drug craze. Nearly 2 years after David's death, the use of synthetic drugs like K2 has exploded and is becoming a major problem across the country. In 2009 the American Association of Poison Centers reported only 13 calls concerning synthetic drug use. One year later, in 2010, over 1,300 calls were made to poison centers about synthetic drugs. So I have gone from 2009 to 2010, and now 2011. We have gone from 13 to 1,300 to last year, 12,000 calls to poison centers regarding synthetic drugs. The Monitoring the Future Survey, a survey of high school youth, asked students for the first time last year if they ever tried synthetic drugs. Roughly one in nine high school seniors responded they used synthetic drugs last year. These numbers are quite obviously an astonishing increase in just 2 years and they illustrate, of course, how rapidly the use of these drugs has come on the scene.…”