Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I appreciate her previous remarks, but I still have concerns about this bill because it is another so-called tough-on-crime bill that fails to address the true causes of the opioid crisis and will result in more incarceration of more drug users and street-level sellers. Furthermore, there is nothing in the bill that targets the laboratories outside of the United States that are responsible for flooding our communities with fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. Mr. Speaker, since President Nixon declared a war on drugs nearly 50 years ago, laws that ignore evidence and research in favor of harsh penalties and more mandatory minimums have succeeded in placing the United States as number one in the world in incarceration. Mass incarceration has gotten so bad that some studies have shown that it actually adds to crime rather than reducing crime. For example, too many children are being raised by parents in prison, and too many people have felony records who can't find jobs because they are victims of bills like this. Mr. Speaker, I have three main concerns regarding this legislation. First, the bill abandons evidence and expertise in exchange for expediency. We have a process that works well for designating controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act. This bill changes that process and allows DOJ to ignore the experts at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Drug Administration.…”