Political Quotes

“Thank you, Madam President. Thank you to my colleagues for the terrific work they have done on such an important issue, which in my State sort of began in the most rural of the areas of the State and spread and spread and spread. This is the right kind of comprehensive response for this, but as Senator Whitehouse just said, it means real funding for CARA and what we are doing. I am pleased we are coming together in a bipartisan way overall, finally taking action on the opioid epidemic that is devastating communities across our country. We know some of the statistics. More people died in my State than in the country as a whole in 2015 from opioid overdoses rather than they did from auto accidents. We are experiencing a record number of fatal overdoses. There is no State and probably county untouched by the scourge. We need to remember the human cost of addiction. In Warren, OH, a couple of weeks ago, there was middle-age woman who now has a child now in his midtwenties who has suffered addiction for a dozen years, has been in and out and is doing better, and then falls back. His family is affluent, so his treatment has been better than some. But she says that when there is an addiction, it afflicts the whole family. Nobody is really exempt. In my State, 2,500 Ohio families in one year lost a loved one to addiction. Thousands more continued to struggle with opioid abuse or with a family member's addiction. It is not an individual problem or a character flaw.…”