Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my legislation, the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act, that is currently before the House. The fentanyl crisis is one that is affecting families and communities across the United States. As of 2021, 70,601 Americans died as a result of synthetic opioid overdoses. As of 2020, 82.3 percent of all opioid- involved overdoses were the result of synthetic opioids. Last year, almost 70 percent of all drug overdose deaths were caused by fentanyl-- over 100,000 American lives destroyed because of this. This has certainly impacted my home State, the Commonwealth of Kentucky. A recent drug overdose report from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy reported that there was a 14.5 percent increase in overdose deaths in my home State. According to cases autopsied by the Kentucky Office of the Medical Examiner and toxicology reports submitted by Kentucky coroners, the rise in the death toll was driven largely by an increased use of fentanyl, accounting for approximately 70 percent of all overdose deaths in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Unfortunately, this scourge has spread with the help of our greatest strategic threat, the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. We know that China has historically been and remains the primary source of fentanyl in global circulation.…”