Political Quotes

“Dana Milbank had an interesting column in the morning Post about the feckless congressional response to the opioid crisis. Both the administration and Congress have been good at hyping the crisis, but when it comes time to actually taking action, almost nothing happens. The failure to protect our citizens is appalling, especially since most of the opioid crisis is a result of failed public policies. We have spent over $1 trillion on a failed war on drugs that concentrates on prohibition and punishment instead of treatment, which would help people break the cycle of addiction. The challenges that drove people to abuse opioids in the first place, like chronic pain, depression, and lax policies prescribing vast quantities of ever-more powerful opioids, should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. It was a public policy failure of government, the industry, and, sadly, some unscrupulous practitioners that allowed the addiction genie out of the bottle. When denied access to opioids, people, understandably, turn to heroin and other damaging and addictive drugs because they were trapped by these powerful forces. Few people willingly damage their bodies and destroy their families and careers, if not for powerful forces beyond their control. As appalling as this failure is, what is even worse is that we fail to take reasonable, commonsense steps to stop it. The easiest solution is to provide more access to medical marijuana, already available in 28 States.…”