Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, Kristen Holman adored her little brother, Garrett. She cherished his warm heart and his bigger than life personality. She loved her brother unconditionally, as did her mother and father, Bobbie and Don. Unfortunately, on February 9, 2017, at the age of 20, Garrett lost his life to a synthetic opioid that was mailed straight to him from China. My district lost a promising young man, Don and Bobby lost their son, and Kristen lost her little brother and only sibling. Sadly, tens of thousands of families across the Nation have lost their loved ones to the opioid crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, drug overdoses killed over 64,000 Americans in 2016, a staggering increase of over 21 percent from 2015. Of those souls lost, over 20,000 deaths were caused by synthetic opioids, the same type of drug that took Garrett's life. Regrettably, the suffering shows no signs of slowing, as deaths from synthetic opioids have more than doubled from last year. Synthetic drugs can be more potent and deadly than the real thing. However, when law enforcement encounters a certain synthetic drug compound and takes steps under current Federal law to bring the drug under lawful control, the manufacturers of these synthetics slightly alter the chemical structure of the drug to once again evade law enforcement. As a result, law enforcement is constantly one step behind the manufacturers. Left undeterred, manufacturers and distributors continue to flood the U.S.…”