Amy Klobuchar: “Thank you very much, and I thank Senator Markey for the work he has done and his passionate words as well as his…”

“Thank you very much, and I thank Senator Markey for the work he has done and his passionate words as well as his understanding of the crisis this truly is. I think one of the ways I can explain it in my State is, every day you turn on the news and you hear about car crashes and you hear about when there is a murder. Well, in the heart of my State, deaths from prescription drug abuse now claim the lives of more Minnesotans than homicides or car crashes. It is a crisis on the rise. According to the department of health in our State, drug overdose deaths among Minnesotans increased 11 percent from 2014 to 2015. Last year alone, 336 people in our State died from overdoses. The Twin Cities has been hit hard by this deadly trend. In Hennepin County, data shows that opioid-related deaths have increased 40 percent since 2006. But we know this is not a crisis confined to our urban areas. I see Senator Shaheen from New Hampshire is here. This is something that has hit hard in her State in rural areas, just like in mine. In one 7,000-person town in Minnesota, 3 young people died in just 6 months. Another three were hospitalized for heroin overdoses. We know, by the way, that heroin overdose is no longer separate from prescription drugs. In fact, four out of five heroin users got their start on prescription drugs.…”