Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the overdose epidemic is ravaging communities all across this country and leaving a trail of death and destruction. The latest data shows we lost nearly 107,000 Americans last year alone. The majority of those deaths were attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid made from precursors shipped from China, mainly, to Mexico, where they are then manufactured. Fentanyl alone is killing 70,000 Americans a year. On average, we are talking about more than 190 people dying each day due to fentanyl. That is more people than a commercial 737 airliner can hold. So imagine the public outrage if, day after day, commercial airliners fell out of the sky, killing everyone aboard. Well, you can imagine what the reaction would be. Social media would erupt. People would protest. Our constituents wouldn't just ask us to intervene; they would demand it. Unfortunately--and this is a mystery to me--the fentanyl epidemic and the drug overdose deaths we have seen in the last year don't get the same sort of response. It is as though our threshold for outrage now is so high that even the death of 107,000 Americans would not achieve that threshold. We know this epidemic does not discriminate. It kills people of all ages and backgrounds from major cities and small towns all across America. But one of the most alarming trends we see is the appalling trend of fentanyl-related deaths among teenagers.…”