[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1579-E1581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   STUDENT CONGRESSIONAL TOWN MEETING

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, September 25, 2000

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the outstanding work done 
by participants in my Student Congressional Town Meeting held this 
summer. These participants were part of a group of high school students 
from around Vermont who testified about the concerns they have as 
teenagers, and about what they would like to see the government do 
regarding these concerns.
  I submit these statements into the Congressional Record, as I believe 
that the views of these young persons will benefit my colleagues.

                        Prescription Drug Costs

       KAYLA GILDERSLEEVE: To start off, good afternoon, 
     Congressman Sanders. We sincerely thank you for providing 
     some time for young people to be able to voice their opinions 
     and concerns for our state and our country. And today we have 
     come to you to encourage you to continue the battle with 
     pharmaceutical companies for our senior citizens.
       ANGELA DEBLASIO: In the Year 2000 the United States of 
     America as well as our fine State of Vermont have a problem, 
     the soaring cost of prescription drugs. There are millions of 
     Americans, an estimated 13 million elderly Americans who need 
     drugs; they cannot afford them because they do not have 
     prescription drug coverage. This just does not affect poor 
     people. Many middle class seniors without additional private 
     insurance struggle to pay for what they need. Those who 
     cannot afford the prescription drugs pay for their drugs by 
     taking their limited amount of money out of their food budget 
     or not adequately heating their homes in the winter season; 
     thus their quality of life deteriorates. The result is that 
     some do without their prescribed medications, take half a 
     dose or in extreme cases use their partner's medication, 
     assuming they are one in the same, and so they suffer, die, 
     or travel to the emergency room with higher cost to the 
     health care and Medicare systems.
       TESS GROSSI: Congressman Sanders, you have stated in a May 
     3rd press release that, and we quote, ``The industry is 
     continuing to fleece Americans while working to kill major 
     prescription drug legislation in Congress.'' As the Fortune 
     500 number shows us, pharmaceutical companies took in more 
     profit than the top auto, oil and airline companies. This is 
     approximately an 18.9 percent

[[Page E1580]]

     profit, the highest margin of any industry in the nation. 
     These pharmaceutical companies are raking in more profit, and 
     the elderly and the sick all over can't afford the care and 
     the help they desperately need.
       KAYLA GILDERSLEEVE: Of course these companies make claims 
     that their high profit margins are necessary to support 
     research and development.
       These development costs do not even begin to explain the 
     rising prices of existing drugs which are projected from the 
     price competition by patent. However, only 20 to 30 cents of 
     each dollar is spent in actual; research and development and 
     less; between 5 to 25 cents is spent on actual production of 
     the drug. The remaining 40 to 70 cents is spent in marketing, 
     selling and administration.
       Many industry critics call the R & D warning a scare 
     tactic, noting a huge percent return on revenues for the 
     previous year. The reality is that they are earning a lot 
     more than they spend on research and development. In 
     addition, drug companies spend approximately $30 million on 
     ad campaigns to combat any attempts to regulate drug pricing. 
     They spend even more on state and federal lobbying efforts.
       TESS GROSSI: Congressman Sanders, we have an industry that 
     makes an exorbitant profit off of sickness, misery and 
     illness of people, and that is disgusting. Drug companies 
     come close to getting $4 billion every year in tax breaks and 
     still Americans pay more and more for these drugs than 
     citizens from other countries. There should be a way that 
     consumers can afford the prescription drugs and at the same 
     time a way for drug companies to make a modest profit and 
     continue research and development. Senior citizens need fair, 
     modest drug prices and it is in America's best interest to do 
     so.
       ANGELA DEBLASIO: Therefore, we urge you to continue your 
     work with the International Prescription Drug Parity Act 
     which allows pharmacists, wholesalers and distributors to re-
     import prescription drugs from other countries as long as 
     those drugs meet strict FDA standards. We also encourage you 
     to continue to take bus trips to Canada to help our elderly 
     fill or refill their prescriptions. It is one of those random 
     act advantages in living in a border state that not every 
     American has access to which is why continuing to push for 
     prescription drug legislation is necessary and vital to our 
     economy and the lives of our country's senior citizens. We 
     must fulfill our responsibility to protect elderly Americans 
     and to do this we must provide affordable prescription 
     medication.
       KAYLA GILDERSLEEVE: Thank you for your time.

                                  ____
                                  

 Need For Alternative Activities To Keep Kids From Alcohol, Drugs and 
                                Tobacco

       APRIL NILES: I am April and I am the PR outreach worker for 
     Youth services and I work with Kids Against Tobacco group 
     which is these guys, and we are basically here to talk about 
     alternatives to doing drugs and alcohol and just trying to 
     think up some activities to keep teens from doing drugs. And 
     as it is now we have one activity night a week down at the 
     Living Room where I work, and we just basically play pool and 
     watch movies and we cook a dinner every Thursday but we would 
     like to have more activities to do. And that is about it.
       BLAKE KINCAID: I am Blake and we just recently held a dance 
     in our group and it was Kids Against Tobacco and we had facts 
     on the walls for students to read, and we had speakers and we 
     held a raffle and Craig will tell you about the speakers.
       CRAIG STEVENS: We had two speakers at the dance, one of 
     them was Wes who lost his voice box and used a machine to 
     project his voice. Another one we had was Lola, and she lost 
     her father to emphysema or lung cancer.
       NATE POWERS: Some of the activities that we are trying to 
     do, we are trying to have the towns build board parks or 
     skate board parks. Also we have a very strange question. We 
     have asked local officials why they are worried about giving 
     two-dollar parking tickets instead of smoking underage 
     tickets for $1.50 and why they are more worried about two-
     dollar tickets than students' lives. So we have come to--
     Blake and I and one of our other CAT members went to a job 
     share a few days ago and we were asked to ask a couple 
     questions about exactly--Blake asked why they were doing two 
     dollar tickets instesd of $2.50 tickets. Mine was how many 
     fires start with tobacco use, and there was a significant 
     amount of fires and deaths the last two years that I have 
     know. And that is about it.
       BLAKE KINCAID: The activities we would like to do beside 
     the skate park, we would also like to have bike paths and we 
     would like to have better places for students to go because 
     The Living Room is only open from one until five, so that 
     does not give students much time to do what they have got to 
     do because from five on they are out on the streets and they 
     cannot do anything about that. It is just one to five without 
     funding.
       NATE POWERS: And around St. J. our local bike path is in 
     Newport which transportation for these children is a big 
     problem. These children say the reason that they are smoking 
     is because there are not any activities for them to do. I 
     have to agree with the clubs, drug-free clubs, yeah, I agree 
     with that. But I think it is our officials that let that 
     happen because I mean some children ruin it for other 
     students.
       We have had significant changes in Lyndonville's local 
     restaurants. They have had a lot of business since the 
     smokers had to be kicked out, and we just want to put out the 
     smoking instead of the children, and I just think that the 
     dance with Wes was talking to children, made a lot of 
     children screaming because it was pretty horrible when they 
     saw what happened to these children when they smoked, and Wes 
     is a nice guy.

                                  ____
                                  

                           Same Sex Marriage

       KELLI FREEMAN: I am here today to tell you about an issue 
     that I have a strong opinion about. That issue is how Vermont 
     gets dumped on because of the Civil Unions Bill. I think that 
     for the safety of one's state the law should have been talked 
     about more carefully. I have heard some pretty mean and nasty 
     jokes that have been said about Vermont and I do not agree 
     with it. Sometimes in different towns and states people spray 
     painted signs, saying ``Vermont, the Gay State'' and ``Take a 
     Fairy to Vermont'' and comments like that. Vermonters do not 
     need to hear or see stuff like that because we are upset as 
     it is. We are afraid to leave the state because we are 
     embarrassed about our license plates because we are afraid of 
     what other people are going to say. That is the main reason 
     why I am talking about this today; we should not be afraid or 
     threatened of what people are going to say about us and we 
     should not be embarrassed because we are Vermonters.
       The people who harass us about the law that was passed, 
     they do not know what it is like to live in a state that 
     everyone discusses in a negative way all the time. We are 
     sick and tired being called the Gay and Lesbian State and if 
     you care at all about the people in this state, then you 
     would think they absolutely would hate what is going on. They 
     are probably scared and just as upset as you are. So when you 
     see a Vermont license plate or a Vermont sign before you say 
     ``The Gay State,'' look at the other citizens and then ask 
     yourself what are they going through because they have to 
     live there and they do not like how they are being pictured 
     either.

                                  ____
                                  

                         Youth Advocacy Rights

       STEVE HOFFMAN: We work in Burlington, that is where the 
     majority of our work is with Club Speak Out around Chittenden 
     County, and I am just going to read off our vision and our 
     mission to give you an idea of what Club Speak Out is and our 
     goals.
       Our vision is Club Speak Out envisions the ability for 
     youth to take the initiative without any constraints, being 
     able to embody positive outcomes in our own lives with the 
     feelings of being valued by the community through interests 
     that arise in the area of youth development.
       And our mission is, Club Youth Speak Out's mission has 
     become a resource for all the youth in all aspects of their 
     life, empowering youth to help themselves in creating healthy 
     developmental programs and resources that will impact their 
     lives positively, using businesses, legislators, schools, the 
     community, and any other area where outcomes can be positive. 
     And that is what this program was designed for, was to go out 
     in Chittenden County and we worked in Burlington to build a 
     model and to give children something to do, take them out of 
     risky behavioral situations and put them where the outcomes 
     can be positive.
       And what we are here today is to ask a question: What can 
     the government do or have in order to increase positive 
     outcomes in the lives of youths? And some of the things that 
     we came up with is provide less competitive monetary funds 
     for programming, and give it to the state and local 
     governments in order to give out to the organizations that 
     are around for youth. What happens is that when you go to 
     apply for a grant there is not that much money out there and 
     there is a lot of competition, and when a new program does 
     come in, a lot of people are scared and they try to stop it. 
     And that is just not right because as long as the program has 
     the right passion and it is designed to work functionally 
     with other programs and positive outcomes can be made then 
     they all have should be given a chance because every little 
     bit helps and counts. If the federal government can provide 
     more money that would be great, and they did just decrease 
     the safe school money I believe, National Safe School money, 
     that was just decreased by 17 percent which is tremendous. 
     And a lot of the grants given out now the money has to be cut 
     which is not too good when we are trying to build programs to 
     build healthy communities.
       Another thing is increase the ability for youth to utilize 
     the resources that state and federal representatives offer; 
     more awareness for youth to be able to come to your office or 
     come to Senator Jeffords and Leahy's office and their local 
     governments and be able to come up and say, This is an issue 
     that we have, how can you help us, what steps do we have? And 
     then form youth governmental boards that have the ability for 
     youth to have a say in working and forming youth policies in 
     accordance with adult policymakers, and we feel that that is 
     real important.
       One issue that did come up today was the dance club and 
     that is something we are working on because we had a Speak 
     Out and with other youth have come up and said we really need 
     something to do, we need a dance club. 242 is a nice club but 
     unfortunately it is not diverse enough and does not really 
     fit the mission and the original reason why it

[[Page E1581]]

     was in place. So we want to kind of start a dance club where 
     all students can go with a game room without any drinking so 
     if they didn't want to dance there is other stuff that they 
     can do that is open until twelve o'clock at night every 
     night. We hire youth, it is run by youth, the money goes 
     right back to the youth, it is not in any business's hands.
       So that would be nice to get definitely some money and 
     support from the government for that too, because we can 
     easily go out and get different companies to donate their 
     services, but as far as the funds and stuff it does cost a 
     lot of money to fundraise that, and it is just a lot, 
     especially with the skateboard park where we had to raise 
     $50,000 for that, and it adds up, and when you keep asking 
     people they are like How much do we have to give? So we feel 
     that is very important.
       JONATHAN CUMMINGS: We would just really like to see youth 
     be involved. When youth run their own organizations they 
     accomplish a lot more and they are a lot more connected with 
     what they are doing which is why our mission is both youth 
     and not necessarily have adults run our programs. I am 
     trying--like my group, I run myself now and I see that 
     students that I work with are a lot more involved when it is 
     youth leading them rather than an adult.

     

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