On the recordFebruary 23, 2016
the Republican leader mentioned a number of things, and I am not going to talk about all of them, but there is one thing I want to focus on for just a minute. We have something that is devastating moving forward throughout this country, and that is poisoning by opioids. These products that come in the form of medicine prescribed by doctors have been devastating and sweeping the country. Of course, I am glad we are moving forward on Dr. Califf--he is a fine man, and he will do a good job as head of the Food and Drug Administration--but we are going to move to some legislation dealing with these poisons. I would hope that everyone would appreciate the fact that what we are going to do, as we do too often, is celebrate the passing of legislation that really doesn't have much to do with reality. The only way we are going to do a better job of fighting this scourge is to have some resources to help people who have the responsibility to do something about that. We need to take up the Judiciary Committee's opioid bill, maybe even as early as next week, but we also need to devote real resources, not just lipservice, to this important problem. ____________________
