On the recordJune 14, 2018
There aren't many today who haven't been touched by the opioid crisis in America. This swift and devastating epidemic has hit every community in America and robbed countless individuals of their hopes and ambitions. Addiction is devastating to witness and, in some cases, it only takes 5 days for someone's son, daughter, or parent to become addicted. The sad truth is that, all too often, many become addicted after taking an opioid for a legitimate reason. This is an epidemic that has torn apart families and left in its path of destruction a generation of children without parents and parents faced with burying their kids. We have also seen more and more news stories of law enforcement agents having near-fatal encounters with just trace amounts of these synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. In one case, a small fleck almost killed a police officer in Ohio. This is a frightening reminder of how dangerous these substances truly are. The loss of so many Americans due to opioid addiction is unfathomable. In 2016 alone, more Americans died due to opioid overdoses than were lost over the entire Vietnam war. The scale of the crisis is immense. The loss of potential for so many is hard to comprehend, but House Republicans and Democrats are coming together in fighting with every tool in our arsenal to combat the opioid crisis. That is why today I rise in strong support of H.R. 5788, known as the STOP Act.…
