Political Quotes

“Madam President, we need to talk about the opioid crisis. The 2020 data shows the largest annual increase in opioid deaths in the last 50 years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 69,710 Americans died last year from opioid-related overdoses, a 37-percent increase from 2019. In Louisiana, the opioid crisis is getting worse--and fast. In 2020, our State, Louisiana, saw a serious spike and the steepest surge in drug overdose deaths in the Nation. Louisiana drug overdose deaths surpassed a record high 2,100 in the 12 months leading up to March 2021. Overdose mortality increased statewide by over 56 percent last year. These numbers are devastating. Last year, opioid deaths increased, for example, in New Orleans by 51 percent with 365 OD deaths, 69 percent in Jefferson Parish, 35 percent in St. Tammany, and a 64- percent increase in St. Bernard Parish. Deaths continue to climb throughout the State. In Alexandria, Acadian Ambulance ``responded to nearly 160 calls of opioid overdoses just in Rapides Parish--an average of over one call per day.'' East Baton Rouge Parish, the State capital, is seeing significant increases in fatal overdoses. According to a local TV station and the coroner's office, 242 people died of an overdose in 2020. This year, through September, the East Baton Rouge Parish has seen 214 fatal overdoses, again, in the first 9 months of this year. Now, the double tragedy of this is that these deaths are preventable.…”