Pete Sessions: “I take a moment to bring attention to an important step that was taken yesterday in the Senate Committee on Health…”

“I take a moment to bring attention to an important step that was taken yesterday in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. On Wednesday morning, the HELP Committee unanimously passed S. 518, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, a bill designed to help states combat the growing scourge of prescription drug abuse and diversion. I begin by thanking Senator Enzi, our chairman, for his excellent support in bringing this bill, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act, before the committee for consideration. I also thank and commend the bill's original cosponsors, Senators Kennedy, Durbin, and Dodd, and their staffs, for contributing to the productive, bipartisan process of developing this legislation. The abuse and diversion of prescription drugs is a tremendous public health issue for our nation, and a growing one. An epidemic that first attracted public notice as a regional crisis has now spread to touch every kind of community, from major cities to the smallest rural hamlet. Prescription drugs now rank second only to marijuana in the incidence of abuse. Over 31 million American adults and adolescents have, at one time, abused pain relievers, and the number of first-time abusers has increased 336 percent since 1990. As appalling as the numbers are, we can not permit them to obscure the human tragedy of drug abuse and dependence, or the toll that drug diversion takes on communities.…”