Roy Blunt: “I want to thank Senator Portman for his comments about what we have tried to do to provide the money, but let me tell…”

“I want to thank Senator Portman for his comments about what we have tried to do to provide the money, but let me tell you, having been involved in that part of it, really, before we began to pass legislation, nobody was more vigorously active than Senator Portman to try to continue to point out the size of this problem and that something had to be done. He was out there talking about how big a problem this was for the country before other people were. Thanks to Senator Ernst for bringing this group together today to talk about this critical issue as we figure out better ways to deal with this terrible scourge of addiction and activity that preys on people who have become addicted. More than 47,000 lives were lost due to opioids in the United States in 2017--47,000 people. More people died of opioid overdoses than died in car accidents. The No. 1 cause of accidental deaths changed dramatically in the last handful of years. For everybody who died, there were hundreds of others who were risking their lives by misusing prescription drugs or illegal drugs or, even worse, illegal drugs that they had no idea what was in them. The fentanyl challenge is so big and so dangerous.…”