Steve Daines: “I would like to use my time today to raise awareness about an important issue. Actually, it is about an important…”

“I would like to use my time today to raise awareness about an important issue. Actually, it is about an important person, and his name is Marc Fogel. Marc is a beloved father and husband. He is also a son, a brother, and an uncle. Over the course of his life, he has been a formative mentor to many young minds. You see, Marc Fogel spent 35 years teaching American history at American international schools around the world and most recently in Moscow. But after dedicating so much of his life to the service of others, he is currently detained in a Russian labor camp. On August 14, 2021, as Marc returned to Russia for 1 final year of teaching before a much-deserved retirement, he was arrested in a Moscow airport for carrying about half an ounce of medical marijuana in his luggage. Marc had been prescribed the medical marijuana as an alternative to opioids to manage his chronic pain after undergoing multiple back surgeries, including a spinal fusion and various other challenging and painful procedures. Marc did not think that this healthcare decision would cost him his freedom and maybe even his life, but following his arrest, a Russian court convicted Marc of ``large- scale drug smuggling'' and sentenced him to 14 years in a maximum security penal colony. He has been there ever since. In 2021, the same year as Marc's arrest, the U.S.…”