Political Quotes

“Madam President, Senator Manchin's amendment, amendment 2151 to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, seeks to address the problem of prescription opiate drugs by tightening restrictions on hydrocodone. Opiate prescription drugs like hydrocodone have been a tremendous and growing problem in Vermont, as they have in West Virginia. I thank Senator Manchin for working with me to make the amendment better. The scourge of prescription drug abuse has had a devastating effect in communities across the country. I heard about the lives destroyed by this epidemic and the violence and other ills it has brought with it in several hearings in Vermont in recent years. Senator Manchin's amendment seeks to make it more difficult for prescription drugs to get into the hands of those who would abuse them by requiring prescriptions more comprehensively and by restricting storage and transportation. I hope these steps will be helpful. I am glad Senator Manchin was willing to work with me to modify the amendment so that it did not cause as many sentencing increases, and particularly to eliminate what would have been a new mandatory minimum sentence. Those who work on the problem of prescription drugs every day have not identified a lack of adequate criminal sentences to be part of the problem, so a significant change in the sentencing scheme was not needed or intended.…”