Ed Markey: “2 weeks ago, I stood here to commend this body for developing and passing much needed legislation to help families and…”

“2 weeks ago, I stood here to commend this body for developing and passing much needed legislation to help families and communities respond to the opioid overdose crisis. This crisis is a tragedy, a scourge, an epidemic that claimed an estimated 49,000 lives just last year. It is one that knows no political, territorial or demographical boundaries. Soon, the Senate will consider a bipartisan, bicameral, consensus opioid package, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week. Contained within the conference bill are several of my provisions from the Senate-passed legislation, including Opioid Milestones, a bipartisan bill I introduced with Senators Murkowski and Hassan to create a scorecard to measure our Nation's response to the opioid crisis. In other words, as we spend more money, how do we now give a grade to each one of the programs that we are funding so that in 2, 3, 4 years, it is best practices across the whole country, so that we are ensuring that we learn the lessons of what is, in fact, occurring? So that is a milestone, a scorecard so that we know what is happening with the money, with the programs we are funding. The final package also retains important legislation I introduced with Senators Young and Baldwin to help address increasing rates of infectious diseases associated with injection drug use, such as HIV and viral hepatitis.…”