On the recordJanuary 6, 2016
As a member of the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic, I would like to thank our co-chairs for arranging this special order to discuss the faces of heroin and opiate addiction. The faces of heroin and opiate addiction are getting younger. In my home State of Ohio and across the country, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of infants born with opiates in their system and needing for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS. Tragically, these children are born addicted to drugs and have no voice or awareness as to why they are suffering. The symptoms of withdrawal begin almost immediately. They may suffer from low birth weight, difficulty feeding or breathing, seizures, dehydration, tremors, and excessive or continuous high-pitched crying. Hospital personnel may spend ten hours in a single day to holding and rocking these newborns in an effort to console them, but over 80 percent of children with NAS still require medication to treat their withdrawal. The toll that the heroin epidemic takes on these children can go beyond the terrible physical symptoms and complications, and the effects can be lasting ones. The faces of heroin addiction are young and they are fighting an incredibly difficult and painful battle without ever choosing to suffer. Through no action of their own, these children are victims of the heroin epidemic.…
