Political Quotes

“I thank Chairwoman Wild very much for her kind words. I rise today to urge my colleagues to pass my bill to extend the work of the National Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking so, together, we can complete the Commission's important work in a timely manner. As many of you know, my mission in Congress is to end the opioid epidemic in this country. This bipartisan Commission will help us do just that. Thanks to the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and our former congressional colleague, Max Rose, this bipartisan Commission was established by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020. I was honored that Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed me to the Commission, and that my colleagues on the Commission voted to elect me co-chair, along with Senator Tom Cotton. The goal of the Commission is to develop a strategic approach to combating the flow of synthetic opioids into the United States, but my goal for the Commission is much more simple. It is simply to save lives--save lives, period. Last year, we saw more than 93,000 people die of a drug overdose in this country. We set a new record, a record we never wanted to set. In Maryland alone, we lost nearly 2,500 to opioids. After we made progress in the fight against overdoses in 2019, the numbers are continuing to rise due to the pandemic. As overdoses continue to rise in communities across the country, we have our work cut out for us in this fight against synthetic drug trafficking.…”