[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 23, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S943-S952]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about President
Obama's plan to move Guantanamo Bay terrorists to the United States.
However, it is not much of a plan. With all due respect, it is more of
a failed attempt to fulfill a campaign promise and, in my view, what he
believes will secure his legacy.
Fortunately for us--those who believe that moving dangerous enemy
combatants within our communities is dangerous, irresponsible, and an
illogical idea--the President's plan contains nothing really
substantive. In fact, it fails to recommend an alternative location to
any current facility at all. As a matter of fact, I call that a win.
The plan does not provide any intelligence to substantiate the
President's claims, nor does it even provide a chart or a graph to
support the mathematics on the alleged cost savings, and there is no
estimate regarding the cost to
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local and State governments to support such a move. Indeed, the 9-page
report is short in every regard.
The White House received the Department of Defense's results of their
site surveys and other data regarding a potential closing last month.
And this--I am holding up the report here--this is all we have in
return: 9 pages.
I know the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, my good
friend and colleague, Senator John McCain, is not going to be pleased
with the lack of substance or data or the articulation of a real plan.
The same goes for Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, who at this particular time is going to be introducing
legislation of his own to provide intelligence with regard to the
administration's lack of intelligence on moving detainees to the United
States.
The lack of a plan and the inability of this administration to
provide an alternative site indicate that none of the sites visited by
DOD's survey team met the demands necessary to hold detainees and, more
important, keep our community safe. The fact that no site was named and
no substance on those visits was provided tells me there is no
alternative to match what we are now doing safely and securely at
Gitmo, period.
This so-called plan, as outlined by the President in his speech today
from the White House, skims over four steps to closing Guantanamo Bay.
First, it articulates the administration's plan to continue moving
detainees designated for transfer by the President's national security
team to foreign countries.
In some instances, this may have been successful with regard to
individuals being rehabilitated, but a third of the time, detainees
transferred to third-party host countries have returned to the
battlefield. And these are just the ones we know about. This is called
recidivism, and the rates are too high for this process to be called
``secure and responsible,'' as the administration has labeled it.
Second, the administration plans to continue its review of the threat
posed by those detainees who are not currently eligible for transfer
through the Periodic Review Board.
This is to provide a new review on the current population of
detainees who have been deemed too dangerous to transfer--deemed too
dangerous to transfer, and yet this President wants to give them a
second shot at getting out. This doesn't make any sense. Terrorists are
not criminals. As much as this President would like for you to believe
they are, terrorists are not equal to the inmates we have across
America's prison system. They are fixated on the destruction of
America. They have no regard for life, not that of their own and
especially not the lives of innocent civilians.
The report hones in on having a detainee population anywhere from 30
to 60. There seems to be an assumption on the part of the President
that the review board will determine that half of those deemed too
dangerous for transfer or release are suddenly safe for transfer or
release. Does the President believe this is possible or does this
assumption simply serve his own means to create cost savings for his
plan that can never be realized?
The plan also fails to account for the fact that our Nation is still
mired in the War on Terrorism. We are still fighting in the Middle East
and worldwide, including the United States of America, to ensure that
terrorism does not prevail. What about the individuals we detain from
this day forward? What about those individuals with critical
information related to the next terrorist threat? How can we operate
without a facility like Guantanamo Bay to hold terrorists we take off
the battlefield?
Third, the plan attempts to identify individual dispositions, one by
one, for those who remain designated for continued law of war
detention, to include Article III, military commissions, or foreign
prosecutions. What a muddle.
In his remarks today, President Obama advocated for trying terrorist
suspects in Article III courts. The President named two American
citizens--Faisal Shahzad and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev--to articulate his
point. Both of those individuals, however, were apprehended in the
United States, not on the battlefield.
The intent of the Guantanamo detention facility is to protect the
American people by removing terrorists from the battlefield. As the
United States faces a growing threat from terrorist organizations, such
as ISIS, which have tens of thousands of members, bringing those
terrorists to the United States to stand trial simply cannot be the
answer. It is not safe for the American people and irresponsible to our
national security.
Fourth, the plan states the administration's desire to ``work with
Congress to lift unnecessary prohibitions in current law.'' That is in
quotes, ``work with Congress.''
Well, there is something that is unique with the President, ``work
with Congress to lift unnecessary prohibitions in current law.'' But it
does not anywhere in its nine pages endorse a specific facility to
house Guantanamo detainees; rather, the plan describes a prototype for
a detention facility in the United States--not Kansas, not Colorado,
not South Carolina, not anywhere in the United States.
The President's long-awaited plan is to work with Congress to
identify the most appropriate location as soon as possible, according
to the summary provided to my office by the Department of Defense.
Question: How could it take 7 years to arrive at the idea to work with
Congress? What a novel idea, but only for this express purpose. If the
President had a suitable alternative, he would have provided it in this
plan. If he had a suitable alternative, he would have provided it in
2009 when we stopped his plan the first time.
Further, the plan fails to substantiate President Obama's repeated
claims that Guantanamo Bay serves as a recruiting tool for jihadists.
Let me repeat this. The plan fails to substantiate President Obama's
repeated claims that Guantanamo Bay serves as a recruiting tool for
jihadists, a rallying point for terrorist attacks, hindering relations
with allies, and draining Department of Defense resources. My goodness.
I wrote Defense Secretary Ash Carter in November to ask for
intelligence reports or data to support many of these assertions. I
asked Secretary Carter if an intelligence assessment has been done in
conjunction with the site surveys recently conducted by the Department
of Defense from the safety of our community's standpoint. I asked for
the Department's rationale for evaluating Fort Leavenworth, when three
previous evaluations have made it abundantly clear it is and continues
to be an unacceptable alternative. I asked if there were intelligence
products regarding previous site evaluations at Fort Leavenworth.
The administration has argued that Guantanamo is a recruiting tool
for terrorists. So I logically asked for an intelligence assessment to
support that argument. As a follow on, I asked what assessment had been
done to reflect that Guantanamo has increased terrorist recruitment.
And finally, was there any empirical data to support the
administration's argument that national security threats will decrease
if enemy combatants are held in the United States? Common sense will
tell you that it would increase.
Two months later, the response confirmed my assumptions. The
Department of Defense had no intelligence products--none. There were no
intelligence products, no data to provide to support the President's
argument that GTMO serves as a recruiting tool and that moving
detainees to the mainland would increase security and decrease the
terrorist threat to the United States.
My colleagues, this plan really confirms what many of us already
know: There is no safe alternative to GTMO--not in Kansas, not in
Colorado, not in South Carolina. Nowhere on the mainland is there a
secure and responsible alternative. If there were, this President would
not have failed to articulate it in his plan.
Mr. President, a plan that is a legacy speech does not safeguard the
lives of the American people.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are postcloture on the nomination.
Mr. MANCHIN. I wish to speak on the nomination of the Food and Drug
Administration, Dr. Robert Califf.
[[Page S945]]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator is recognized.
Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I believe the FDA needs new leadership, a
new focus and a new culture, and Dr. Robert Califf's past involvement
with the pharmaceutical industry reflects that he will not be this
person. He will not have the impact or leadership capabilities the
Nation needs to stem the tide of the opioid crisis we have all over
this country, even in your great State of Oklahoma and my State of West
Virginia, which has been ravaged by this. I would like to put this in
context for a little bit. He has been there over a year--a good man. I
am not speaking about his ability, his honesty, his integrity, his
education, his background, and all the good work he has done. But he
has been there for a year, and for the past 20 years Dr. Califf
basically has come from the institutional research side, from
education, and with that, his support has come from the pharmaceutical
industries, those that are putting opioids on the market. I just feel
it would be hard, human naturewise, for him to change and rule to keep
these products from coming onto the market. So to put this in context,
this is not personally about Dr. Califf. This is about the culture he
comes from and the year he has been there as the No. 2 man and what has
happened during that period of time.
Let me go over some things. Over the last decade, the FDA has
approved new drugs at historically high rates. In 2008, companies
filing applications to sell never-before-marketed drugs were denied 66
percent of the time. They were denied 66 percent of the time. Yet
between the beginning of 2015 and August of 2015, the FDA rejected only
3 uses for new chemical entities and approved 25. That is an approval
rate of 89 percent.
Now, tell me how in 7 short years that culture changed to where
anything and everything coming at us was passed through, when we have
already become the most addicted country on Earth. If one looks at new
drugs and not the use of drugs, they have rejected only 1 and approved
23. That is a 96-percent approval rate in 2015. So of the new drugs
that came to the market, only 1 was rejected--a 96-percent approval
rate.
In 2008, the FDA's approval of new marketing claims for existing
drugs was 56 percent. In the first 8 months of 2015, it was 88 percent.
This includes approving OxyContin for children as young as 11. The
FDA's 2013 approval of Zohydro drew widespread concern. All of us were
outraged when we heard this new drug came on the market.
To put another time period in context, I had worked for 3 years to
try to get all opioids from a schedule III to a schedule II so doctors
could prescribe only for 30 days. You had to go back and see your
doctor. Up until that time, Vicodin and Lortab--the two most widely
prescribed opioids--were schedule III. That means you could get a 90-
day prescription and then call in to get it refilled. They were going
out like M&Ms.
We were able to do that, and no sooner did we get that done--and it
took 3 years, when it should have been 3 weeks. Within the same week
that all opioids got to us from a schedule III to a schedule II, they
approved a new drug called Zohydro, which was 10 times more powerful
than Vicodin or Lortab--much more powerful. That approval was done
against their advisory committee 11 to 2. That means 13 experts
evaluated this drug and said: It is not needed, too powerful, don't do
it. Guess what, they did it anyway.
Now they are saying that they are not going to pay attention to the
advisory committee. Not only did they say they are not going to pay
attention to the advisory committee, but we have had the decision on
OxyContin being given to 11-year-old children; we have had the two new
drugs that came out in 2014 after Zohydro and the pushback from
Senators representing our respective States; they had a new drug called
Targiniq, which is an extended-release OxyContin product, and Hysingla,
which is an extended-release hydrocodone product.
So there were three new decisions made, with two new powerful opioids
coming to the market and the decision that OxyContin would be given to
11-year-olds. That was done without any review from the advisory
committee. They got so much pushback from Zohydro, they said: We are
not going down this path again. We will just not have anybody review
it. We will just go ahead and do it.
If you believe that is a culture that will protect the welfare and
well-being of our citizens in our States all through this great country
of ours, then I am sorry because I don't. I am sorry, but that is why I
have been so passionate. I have more people dying of legal prescription
drug abuse than anything else in the State of West Virginia. More
people die. It is ravaging families.
I have personal letters I will read, and they will tear your heart
out with what is happening and how this grips and tears people apart.
It tears communities apart. Every law enforcement agency in America
will tell you--no matter what town they are in, what county they are
in, or what State they are in--that over 80 percent and upward of 95
percent of all crimes committed are drug related, are some sort of drug
related.
There is not one of us right now in this beautiful Senate Chamber
that doesn't know somebody in our immediate family or Senate family
that hasn't been affected by drugs, either prescription legal drugs or
illegal drugs. It is awful. It is an epidemic.
I believe the FDA must break its cozy relationship with the
pharmaceutical industry and instead start a relationship with the
millions of Americans. I have said that I am going to fight against the
FDA protecting a business plan and hopefully the culture will change,
and they will start protecting America and the plan of families and
citizens of this great country to have a healthy lifestyle.
It is because of this belief that I am urging my colleagues to vote
against the confirmation of Dr. Robert Califf as the director of the
Food and Drug Administration. He will still be there and still be a
valuable person. He is just not that person with the passion to change
the culture in this important agency. We have let this sleeping giant
go for far too long.
My office has been absolutely flooded, Mr. President, with stories
from West Virginians--but I have received them from all over the
country--who want their voices to be heard. They say: Please use my
name. I am not ashamed. We have been hiding too long. I have watched
too many people's lives be destroyed. So today I will read letters not
only from West Virginians but also people across this great country of
ours that have been impacted by the opioid abuse epidemic.
I urge my colleagues to listen to these letters from their States and
stories from my State about these drugs before confirming Dr. Califf,
and in all good conscience make that decision tomorrow when we vote. Do
you really believe he can bring the changes needed and not just say:
Well, we have to have somebody there. He is already there. He will do a
good job where he is; he is just not going to be able to kick them and
shake them up and say we are not going down this path any more. There
are some good people. We have made some recommendations of some good
people who would bring the cultural changes that need to be brought.
I am going to read first about a young lady from Southern West
Virginia. Her name is Chelsea. This is her story.
As a recovering addict, I have watched myself, my friends,
and loved ones suffer from this horrible thing we call
addiction. As I watch all these people now suffering, I know
they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and
neither did I.
Whether it be for pain or just simply hanging with the
wrong people like I did, we all have one thing in common, we
chose to do drugs for the first time.
Someone made a decision to do drugs for the first time.
Growing up, I can honestly say I had what most people would
call a normal childhood.
Chelsea comes from an upper socioeconomic family in Southern West
Virginia. She continues:
I was raised by two hardworking parents who would and will
still do anything for me. I was a gymnast and a cheerleader
for most of my life and went to church every Wednesday and
Sunday. My dad was even the Mayor of Madison at one point.
But even being raised up in a good home did not stop me from
doing drugs.
So this has no socioeconomic bearing. It does not. It is not a
partisan issue. Whether you are a Democrat or
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Republican, it makes no difference. Rich or poor makes no difference.
Chelsea continues:
I can still remember the first time I heard about someone
getting high. I was in the 6th grade and became friends with
a girl whose parents got high themselves. We would walk about
the playground and she would talk of these things called
``drugs.'' As she talked day in and day out about how getting
high made her feel, it made me start to wonder what this
thing called ``getting high'' was really about.
Now, mind you, I am talking about a 12-year-old girl. She was just 12
years old.
I can remember thinking how cool I thought it was that her
parents had done drugs with her and would party with her.
So another friend of hers, also 12 years old, had parents who were
doing drugs with her and would party with her.
Chelsea continues:
One weekend I went to her house to stay the night and this
was the first time I had gotten high. We smoked some pot,
drank some alcohol, and I was turned on to my first pill
around the age of 12. From this day forward, my life would
forever be changed.
From the ages twelve to fifteen I partied some on the
weekends and sometimes during the week, but as time went on
my addiction and tolerance grew more and more. By this time,
I was doing more pills because I had access to them. Between
stealing Lortabs off my dad, to hanging with that girl so we
could get high with her dad, to buying pills off the local
drug dealer on the street, I had moved from doing them every
now and then to every day.
I would stay a lot of weekends at this girl's house just to
get high because my parents would never have done that nor
did they know I was doing it. By sixteen my life took another
turn. My grandmother, who I called Nana, had taken care of
me most of my life while my mother worked. She was
diagnosed with lung cancer two years prior. In the last
days of her life, I would visit her in the hospital and
she would tell me how proud she was of me and how I was
her little model.
I had also met a very special guy by the name of J.R. a few
months before this who I spent a lot of time with. On July
18, 2003, my Nana passed away. On the day of her wake, J.R.
took me out to dinner, and on the way home he asked me to go
meet his dad. I explained to him I could not and that my
grandma's funeral was the next day.
He dropped me off that night, kissed me good-bye, and that
was the last time I ever heard from J.R. Twenty minutes after
he left me, he wrecked and died. I felt like my heart had
been ripped out of my chest.
The day of his funeral is the next time I met the love of
my life that would soon try to destroy my life. It was called
OxyContin. I fell in love immediately with OxyContin. It took
all of my cares and worries away, and from that moment on all
I wanted to do was be numb.
As the years passed, my drug addiction grew worse. I was
not only doing pain pills, I was now experimenting with all
kinds of other things.
I can still remember my senior week in high school. While
everyone was excited about going to the beach, I had to make
sure I had enough drugs to go and not be sick. I took Roxy's
and Oxy's, pretty much anything I could get my hands on, and
eight balls of cocaine.
By this time in my life I didn't care about anything. It
never once had crossed my mind that if I got caught with all
of that I could go to jail. I was just worried about my next
high.
The following months were the same. I was doing anything I
could to get my hands on drugs, from pain pills to cocaine to
meth. I did not care as long as I was high. I was hanging
around with people who were as sick as I was and places that
I look back now that I would not even take my dog.
At 19 I met a guy who would fuel my drug addiction even
more. He was 40 years old and dealt OxyContin. At this point
I could not afford my habit, so I did what I had to do. I
started seeing my drug dealer.
My life soon went from bad to worse. I had OxyContin 80s
any time I wanted them, and at the time I thought life can't
get any better than this. When you are doing eight to ten
OxyContin 80s a day, you will do whatever it takes to get
them.
At this point I was turned on to heroin. Heroin would have
taken my life if it hadn't scared me so much. The high from
heroin is so intense that anyone who had done it would have
fallen in love. But, actually, it scared the life out of me.
As time passed and I wasn't getting high like I wanted to
anymore from snorting OxyContin, I decided to start shooting
up. That is one thing I never thought I would do is shoot up.
I always told myself that people who shot up were the
homeless people on the streets, complete and utter trash.
Now here I was sticking a needle in my arm to get what I
wanted. And to be honest, I thought life was bad before. It
just got a whole lot worse. The life I was and the life that
I knew was gone, and OxyContin was completely ruling my life
now.
OxyContin is a legal drug made by a legal pharmaceutical that knew
exactly the effects this would have when they put this on the market
over 20 years ago.
She said:
What stood before everyone was pure addiction.
I had started stealing off of everyone by now and didn't
care who I hurt. People's priceless possessions that meant so
much to them meant nothing to me. All I'd seen was my next
fix. That's all I could see.
People were bringing me stolen stuff and I was taking it to
the nearest pawn shop or my drug dealer. I had no shame. I
had needle marks all up and down my arms, and I would lie to
my family about how they got there. It was like I had no
conscience, or, better yet, my addiction was my conscience.
Eventually I got caught stealing and was charged with 17
different felonies and one misdemeanor. This still did not
slow me down even though I was looking at two to 20 years in
prison. Nothing scared me more than being sick from the
drugs.
On September 29, 2008, I was called in for a random drug
test and failed because I had shot up OxyContin the day
before. At the courthouse they handcuffed me and shackled me
and sent me to Southwestern Regional Jail where I did a total
of 10 days. As I sat there in that jail cell and cried, I
thought a pill could not be worth two to 20 years of my life,
and I hit my knees and prayed to God that if He brought me
out of that jail cell, that I would never, ever, ever touch
drugs again. The Lord answered my prayer and the judge gave
me the choice to stay in jail or go to the Life Center of
Galax, in Galax, Virginia.
I chose to go to rehab. I completed the 30-day program and
came back and did Thomas Memorial's intense outpatient
program for 6 more weeks. Once I got home I was sentenced to
two to 20 years, but they suspended my sentence. I went
through drug court and completed it. I was the third person
to ever graduate from the Lincoln County Drug Court.
I also had to do 14 more days in jail, 6 months of home
confinement, and 4 years' probation. I can honestly say that
going to jail and rehab saved my life. If I hadn't have been
put in jail, I would probably be 6 feet in the ground just
like a lot of my friends that I had to bury.
All of these things combined gave me something I hold very
dear to my heart. My recovery. Recovery has not only given my
life back. It has given me a chance to be a daughter, a
sister, a wife, and hopefully a mother someday, a productive
member of society, a good friend, but most of all, my
recovery has given me a chance to be the voice of the sick
and suffering addicts who lay in bed at night wondering if
there is a way out.
I enjoy giving people hope and showing them that treatment
does work. I am living proof that if you work the program of
recovery, it will work for you. Since that day I had found
myself sitting in that jail cell with no hope and my life
completely consumed by my addiction, my life has changed for
the better. I have graduated with an Associate's Degree in
applied science from Southern West Virginia Community
Technical College.
I went on to get my Bachelor's degree in the arts of
psychology from West Virginia State University, and now I am
currently working on my Masters of Social Work degree at
Concord University, and I will graduate with that degree in
May.
I have also been able to go to various schools, drug
courts, and different places around the state to tell my
story of addiction from where I was then to where I am now. I
have also had the pleasure of working with a great group of
people who are trying to get a sober living home open in
Danville, West Virginia called the Hero House.
I can tell you, she is so passionate about getting this Hero House so
she can help other people. Anybody listening who wants to help Chelsea
in Danville, WV, with the Hero House, please do so or contact my
office.
Now, with all this being said, I don't tell my story to get
praise. I tell my story because there is a son, a daughter, a
husband, a father, a wife, and many, many other people out
there addicted to drugs and they do not see a light at the
end of the tunnel.
When you are in active addiction, that light is so dim and
a lot of times people think they are going to die from this
horrible disease. But I am here to show people that you don't
have to die. You don't have to let that horrible addiction
win. You can step out and take your life back, because I am
here to tell you that if you don't, if you don't, your
addiction is going to take you to your grave.
Drugs do not discriminate. They know no good, no bad, no
rich, no poor. There are so many people out there who suffer
from this because there is little to no treatment.
By the grace of God I was sent to rehab and given a second
chance. I still have the horrible reminders every day of the
things I did to my family, to my body, and, most of all, to
my self-esteem.
I have the track marks after being 7 years sober that
constantly remind me of the life I once lived. I have a poor
self-image because of the men I chose to give myself to just
to get a pill, and the damage I did to my family because I
had no cares in the world.
One day I hope there is enough treatment to help the
addicts who want help. People need to be given a second
chance and shown there is a better way of life than to do
drugs.
[[Page S947]]
I have another story called Tami's story, but I know Chelsea. I know
this girl. She is impressive. She said: Please tell my story, I want
people to know. No one could come from a finer family than I came from.
No one can go lower than I have gone, and no one but by the grace of
God could be saved like I was.
When we hear these stories--and all she is saying is there is no
treatment. She was lucky. She found a treatment center. Somehow we have
to come to grips with this. We have a tax on tobacco because we know it
is harmful and we have to cure people of the disease. We have a tax on
alcohol. We have no fee whatsoever on opiates--none--and it is
destroying lives like nothing else that has ever happened in this
country. We need to make people conscious of this, and we need to have
an FDA that is compassionate, but not only that, is committed to the
change that needs to be made in our culture.
I want to read Tami's story, from West Virginia. That is in the
northern panhandle. Chelsea was way down in the southern part of our
State of West Virginia.
We have 2 adult children suffering from substance use
disorder.
Our son entered the military while in college. He was sent
to Iraq right after 9/11, December 27, 2001. He experienced
things that he never talked about, celebrated his 21st
birthday there, and returned home. He was not a saint when he
went to war. He had a juvenile past of drinking. Back then we
thought he was a typical teenager acting out. When he
returned, he suffered PTSD, as many do, and went to the VA
hospital for treatment. He was put on cocktail after cocktail
of medications.
We all know this. We all know that basically these brave men and
women who are willing to risk their lives and sacrifice their lives for
us--in order to treat their pain, we think, just give them a
prescription, and they are able to get anything and everything. That is
what they are talking about when he was put on cocktail after cocktail
of medications--was this his starting point of the spiral into
addiction?
I believe his addiction to opioids, benzoids, and
amphetamines started then. I know that he spiraled from that
point on. He lost his marriage, he didn't see his son, he
bounced from drugs to drugs to drugs. He obtained several
DUIs, and time after time he walked away, no offer of help,
no sentencing. He bounced, married again. She was addicted to
heroin. He bounced again, was in and out of our house.
Unfortunately, we always gave him a safe place to land.
She said: ``Unfortunately,''--not fortunately but unfortunately--``we
always gave him a safe place to land.''
The last time I saw him is when I called the police on him.
I discovered that him and his girlfriend, with two small
children, who had been living in our house for four months
were using and selling drugs. I found out he was recently
incarcerated for drug traffic and sent to a correctional
rehabilitation facility.
Our daughter was an athlete all through school. She
received injury after injury, and at 18 started seeing
specialists for back pain. That was in 2004. They prescribed
opiates. I never saw the addiction coming. She lost her best
friend since first grade that year to a drunk driving
accident. She went to counseling. More prescriptions.
She appeared fine, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, and
then because of back pain more pain prescriptions were given.
I realized she had a problem when she was pregnant with her
second child and was stepped down to Vicodin while pregnant.
Vicodin while pregnant.
After his birth, we started her first rehab experience. She
returned to the father of her children sober. She relapsed
and began snorting heroin.
At this time she was living in Ohio and we were unaware of
her relapse. We found out when her mother-in-law went to
court and took her children. That was one of the worst days
of all of our lives. We immediately picked her up, brought
her back to West Virginia, and into treatment.
Fast forward. Thousands of dollars later on attorneys,
doctors, rehab, she returns to Ohio to try to obtain her
children. Relapsed. She began shooting heroin and then
arrested. We let her sit in jail and picked her up on her
release. Charges were dismissed. Back to West Virginia she
comes, hospitalized for a week and rehab again.
She has now been in recovery for 13 months. She fell in
love with a nice, drug-free man, moved to Ohio to try to
obtain custody of her children back, and is six months
pregnant. One thing I can say is my daughter was always a
good mother. Even while on active addiction, she worked and
took care of them.
As you can tell, both of our children became addicted to
prescription drugs first. . .
And they tell me this is exactly how it starts. It starts at a very
young age. Recreational marijuana, prescription drugs out of your
parents' medicine cabinet, taking it to school, being the cool kid in
school, sharing those drugs, then you begin using them, then you sell
them. This is how it starts, and it leads to obtaining street drugs to
feed their addiction. So it goes from occasional to recreational to
addiction to feeding that addiction.
This is a condensed version of course. As with any family
dealing with addiction, it does not show the tears, the hurt,
the financial breakdown put on the family; (we are broke).
Literally and figuratively. She says: I want to thank you for
listening.
Doctors keep prescribing pills, and they will tell you that they have
had very little training in this area. As they go through all of their
medical schools and advanced training, they get very little training on
the effects these drugs have on human beings and the addiction.
We took 1 billion pills off the market when we went from 90 days to
30 days of Vicodin and Lortab. We took that many pills off the market.
That means 30 days.
I have people in my office or in their families--and I know the
Presiding Officer does as well--who will go to the doctor for something
where they may need pain relief for 1 or 2 days. Do you know what they
get? They automatically get enough pills for 30 days. That is the path
of least resistance. It is legal, they can do it, and the doctor will
write a 30-day prescription.
We are working on a bill that will be coming to the floor. We need to
make a lot of changes to that bill, but most importantly, we need to
make sure we have an agency in the Federal Government of the United
States of America that is fighting to protect every American. And it is
not a business plan that we have to adhere to, not at all. These are
good companies. They are legal pharmaceutical companies. They do an
awful lot of good. I challenge every one of them that is listening to
what we are talking about right now to give us pain relief without
addiction to opioids. Do something. Break through the chemistry or
something. It has to be there. We have been able to solve every other
epidemic. We have been able to cure epidemics and pandemics, and now we
have one that has been ravaging our country for almost 30 years.
I have Samantha's story. She says:
Hello. My name is Samantha Holbrooke.
She wants you to know her name.
I am from Fayette County, WV. I am a 28-year-old female. I
have been an addict for the past 6 years. This letter is to
explain to you how addiction has affected my life. It is also
to express my view on drugs and what it is doing to our
society.
I first started drugs when I was 13 years old. I was a
recreational marijuana user. My mother was an alcoholic and a
drug addict. My father was not in the home or involved in my
life.
Unfortunately, that is true for many people around this
country.
My mother would allow me to drink with her and go to bars.
I was often her designated driver, but I was only 13 years
old. I got in my first and only bar fight at 13. It was with
a 24-year-old woman. She thought I was coming on to her
boyfriend. In reality, we were smoking weed, not trying to
hook up.
When I was 19, my oldest sister and mother introduced me to
hydrocodone, Ritalin, Xanax, and Percocet. My sister and
mother had no income; I did. By getting me on pills, they
were able to get free pills by charging me to get them for
them. By the time I was 22, I think I was snorting Oxycodone.
Oxycodone is made in a single source, which is a powder form that is
compressed. They would break it down, crush it, and snort it to get the
quicker high.
That became my drug of choice. I eventually got in with a
doctor who was pretty much a pill mill.
We know we have them all over this country.
He wrote me a prescription for Xanax and Oxycodone. I got
even more strung out on those two.
As a result of using drugs, I now have memory problems,
concentration problems, and the list goes on and on. I lost
about 30 pounds. I lost my job. I lost my home. I lost my
child. I lost my fiance to suicide. He was drunk when he shot
himself in the head. I believe that had he not been drinking,
he wouldn't have taken his own life.
As a result of these life-changing events, I became
severely depressed. I then took the wrong road and began to
use drugs intravenously. I started lying and stealing. This
led me to gain two felony charges and several other
misdemeanors. I went to jail and prison and spent 2\1/2\
years locked up. I am now on DRC because I am on parole and
had a relapse, which led to several bad decisions, and now I
am paying the consequences.
I am now in recovery. I am a recovering addict. I joined
Narcotics Anonymous and
[[Page S948]]
Alcoholics Anonymous. The classes and programming in prison
helped me to think better. I now analyze a situation before
making a decision.
This is my story. Prescription drugs and all drugs have
ruined a large percentage of the citizens of West Virginia's
lives. I am now in full control of my life again, thank the
Lord.
This story is anonymous, but they wanted to share it with us.
I grew up in a nice home. My grandfather was a pastor. My
dad grew up in church. My family went to church every Sunday.
We had a nice house. We had nice cars. My mom didn't have to
work, and my dad took very good care of us.
My dad had surgery, a common surgery to remove several
large veins in his legs. This is where his addiction began.
This is where he found his unlimited supply of numbness.
I was in middle school, and this is when I remember things
being different. Things were changing. My dad stayed out with
his friends a lot. He wasn't home for dinner anymore. When he
was home, he was lying down sleepy and always said silly
things. I would stay up late at night until he would get
home, only to hear my mom and dad fighting, screaming, and my
mom crying. Eventually I hated to hear the garage door open
because I didn't want him to come home. Before my dad would
take me to school, standing in his business suit with his
briefcase, he would scarf down pills out of a little orange
bottle. He would tip it back like he was eating a box of
Nerds. I didn't know any better. My naive, my innocent mind
didn't know what was happening. I couldn't comprehend that a
doctor could be his drug dealer!
They couldn't comprehend that because we have been taught to trust
doctors.
Things got worse. I started finding bottles of liquor and
cans of beer hidden, and I passed it off. The 3 empty beers
in the back of his company car: Oh, they must be his
``friends''. No one in our family drinks, definitely not my
dad.
I remember whole vacations, weekend trips, and afternoons ruined by
his addiction. Mad fits of rage until one day my mom stood up and
couldn't take it anymore. My dad got the help he needed, but how did he
get the help? In hiding, in private--a local rehab facility. He was on
a business trip. Our culture has stigmatized a group of people--a group
of people who transcend race, status, gender--at the expense of their
lives.
This is a hidden killer. Drug abuse and drug addiction are hidden
killers. So many of us have people in our families or close friends who
don't want to talk about it. They are ashamed, and so it gets covered
up and hidden away. As a result, we don't bring people out, let them
know the effects, and cure them.
She says:
My dad was hurting. No, not from the wounds on his legs
when he had his surgery but from depression and bipolar
disorder. These are the roots of his addiction. They go hand
in hand. When will we see this? When will we stop seeing
addicts as a problem and see them as human beings and
hurting?
For the last 20 to 30 years, I have been in public life, and the
Presiding Officer has been in public life a good bit. I always thought
that anybody who fools with drugs is a criminal and should be put in
jail. We have done that, and it hasn't solved a thing. It has gotten a
lot worse. We have to rethink this issue. This is not a crime.
Addiction is basically an illness. It needs to have a cure, and
treatment is that cure. We have to face that. Senate Republicans and
Democrats are looking at how to fix the sentencing guidelines, and I
think it is encouraging and healthy for us to have these discussions.
She says:
Is it a selfish sickness? Of course it is. But how can we
help them see the light when we push them aside? Because
``they asked for it?'' Just like a lady with skin cancer
``asked for it'' because she laid in a tanning bed? What if
we treated addicts with the same compassion that we treat
cancer patients?
My father has been clean for almost a decade, and the
demons of his addiction still haunt us all. No, we weren't
homeless, nor did we have to face a death to be completely
broken by this horrible epidemic, but I had a zombie for a
father for my adolescence. I missed my childhood, years that
we can never get back, memories that will never be erased,
all because of a little orange pill bottle chased and hidden
with a brown paper bag.
Luckily, my story ends with a happy ending. I still have my
dad. My story hasn't ended up the way so many do every day,
like my two friends who didn't get help in time and passed
away.
I have stories from all over the country, and they are pathetic. I
have a couple more I can read from West Virginia. I will go to
different States.
This is Erica's story. She says:
Hello, My name is Erica and I am an addict. And I say that
with great pride as I celebrated 10 years of recovery in
November of 2015.
I began using drugs here in West Virginia at the ripe age
of 13.
Thirteen seems to be that magic--adolescence. We are coming into
adolescence. We are willing to experiment. We think we are invincible.
We think nothing can harm us.
Prescription drugs were easily accessible at that age and
opened the door to 11 years of anguish, desperation, jails,
and dirty needles. I came from a stable, drug- and alcohol-
free home, but I was able to gain access to prescription
drugs from my peers and my local middle school and high
school on a daily basis.
As my disease progressed, I dropped out of high school my
freshman year and continued to put myself and family through
years of pain and suffering. I attempted drug replacement
therapy to control my opioid addiction, but that was only a
temporary solution, and I eventually returned to drugs.
Finally, I found myself in the court system and facing
felony drug charges. It was then that I was able to find
freedom through a 12-step fellowship.
Today I can say I am a cum laude graduate of Marshall
University, fully employed, homeowner, wife, and the mother
of two wonderful West Virginia boys.
I pray my children don't follow the path that, not only
myself, but many of my West Virginians fall into. The disease
of addiction is progressive and fatal if not treated or
prevented.
Here in West Virginia, we are leading the Nation in drug overdoses.
And where I live in Cabell County, we have had over 900 overdoses in
just the year of 2015.
As a mother, I must trust our leaders to make responsible
choices to help us seek solutions, gain back our communities,
and save our children from following the same deadly path.
I know the FDA was so proud that they came out with some new
guidelines, and they said now they are going to start paying attention
to the advisory committees. They didn't say they would adhere to their
recommendations; they would just start paying attention to them. Also,
the CDC--the Centers for Disease Control--put out some guidelines of
how we should be prescribing, the knowledge we should have, how we
should be administering, and what we should be doing to curb this drug
abuse. And guess which agency fought against that and put it on delay?
The FDA.
The only thing I ask all of my colleagues to do is to please
consider--just send a message with the vote you make tomorrow. It is
not about the doctor at all. It is not about the person before us. It
is about getting an advocate who will make a real change and make sure
we fight this war.
This story is another anonymous story:
My brother is in his early 20s and was hired at the local
plant that employs the majority of the county. He was injured
on the job, saw his doctor, and was prescribed Lortab long
term.
Lortab, as I said before, is a schedule III, 90 days. You can keep
calling it in, calling it in, and calling it in.
As the effects from this started to wane, he was prescribed
Xanax, Klonopin, and a variety of other prescription
medicines. He then lost his good-paying job but found other
work at a lower pay after almost a year of unemployment.
This prescription med addiction continued for years, and
once laws finally cracked down on prescribing narcotics, it
left him unable to get all the medicines he had previously
been prescribed. Once it became too expensive to buy them on
the street, he turned to heroin.
My fun-loving brother who was always at family functions,
loved to be around his nieces and nephews, totally
disappeared. I suspected that something more serious was
going on, but he wouldn't answer calls or texts.
In August, I hadn't seen him in several months. We have
always been close. This was very unusual. I sent him a novel
of a text since he wouldn't take my phone calls confronting
him over the rumors that I had heard of his heroin use. He
denied it.
A few short weeks later, I got a call from my mother that
he was transported to the hospital by ambulance but
discharged a few hours later for chest pain. He later told us
he had gotten a bad batch of heroin and was certain he was
dying.
He told the EMS he had used that morning, as well as
hospital staff. I still to this day don't understand how
someone can come in suffering from an overdose and be
discharged a few hours later.
People don't have knowledge. They are not being trained in this
horrible epidemic that we have in this country.
NOTHING was mentioned to him about treatment or rehab and
he was treated as a
[[Page S949]]
lesser person. I was worried before, but after this was in a
constant state of fear that I would get a call that my 31-
year-old brother was dead.
In October, he called me to tell me yes he was a heroin
addict, but a new treatment center had opened near his home
and he wanted to get clean. He asked if I would go with him,
and I said of course yes.
His insurance wouldn't cover a dime of this treatment. It
would be all out of his pocket at $100 a day plus the cost of
meds. For someone working at a $30,000 or less a year job,
paying for housing, utilities, food, (he never did receive
public assistance)--
He was too proud for that--
this cost was more than he could do.
Again I told him I would be there and pay for whatever he
couldn't. I convinced him he needed more of a support system
than just me and he finally told our parents. We were we were
raised in church and came from a large religious family. He
was so ashamed of what he had become he didn't want the
family to know and the majority of them still don't know to
this day.
I am hoping, as this letter was written anonymously, eventually he
will share this with the family, maybe preventing other members from
going down this road.
He will tell them when he is ready. My mom and I went with
him to his first appointment at the suboxyne clinic, and one
of us has been at every appointment since. It is wonderful--
he has a session with a psychiatrist at every visit.
It's more than prescribing meds. They are doing the
counseling to make sure their patients get clean. I am proud
to say that after only four months, not only is he clean but
he has weaned off the suboxyne.
He still goes for counseling and has the nurse's cell that
he can call 24 hours a day if he's having a hard day. In the
future he wants to tell his story and help others facing the
same crisis.
Madam President, I have been reading stories of people addicted all
over the State of West Virginia. I have stories from your State also,
Madam President. I would like to read that for you.
This is in New Hampshire--Sandown, NH. This is Kathleen's story. I am
sure she has sent you the same copy she sent me. She wants her name to
be known.
My name is Kathleen Stephens. I am a 56 year old RN, BSN,
from Sandown, NH. I am currently the Director of Clinical
Service at a nationwide hospice company. My story is much
like thousands of others out there, pretty average, fairly
normal. I have two children; a 33-year-old son who graduated
with a degree in Mathematics from Boston University and a 31-
year-old daughter who graduated with a psychology degree from
Assumption College. I myself have a Bachelor of Science and
Nursing degree and my children's father a Bachelor's degree
in business from Wharton School of Business in PA. I give you
this detailed background for to you see that we are a well
educated and successful family. We are a white, mid to upper
middle class who have always lived in a beautiful
neighborhood surrounded by loving families whose children
played outside, joined peewee soccer, little league,
softball, basketball and girl scouts to name but a few. We
were the home in the neighborhood where all the children
loved to play. We took our children to drive in movies,
camping, the beach, museums and always visited their
grandparents. We were normal, that's all, or what we
perceived was normal.
When speaking with our children now, they both recount
wonderful childhoods and deem themselves ``lucky.'' Our house
was filled with love. I hugged my kids all the time, never
hesitated to demonstrate to or tell them how much I loved
them. They had grandparents who were always around, who also
demonstrated love for them. About 5 years ago, my daughter,
and her boyfriend, an Intern at Tufts Medical School decided,
after being together for 2 years that they would move to
Sacramento. I was devastated inside but encouraged my
daughter to follow her heart. Over the subsequent years, our
communications went from daily to weekly to scattered. Each
conversation seemed more distant than the last. We saw her an
average of twice a year; most significantly, when we paid her
expenses to come home for Christmas. Her boyfriend never
came; he distanced himself from us almost immediately.
I'm sure at this point you know the story. About 18 months
ago I finally confronted my daughter asking what was wrong,
seeing her go from a loving daughter to a distant person I no
longer knew. Over the previous few years, she turned into a
virtual stranger. I told her I loved her no matter what and
that I would be there for her. At that time she denied any
issue. A few weeks later she was in the hospital and called
me. Apparently, she had hit bottom. She confided that she was
a heroin addict. I was more than shocked. She had been in a
substance free dorm in college, hated drinking, drugs and was
pretty straight laced overall. I kept myself in check saying
that no matter what I would support her, asked her to come
home so we could help her. She confided that it started with
a prescription for opioids that her boyfriend had shared with
her. He was given one for back pain years before, got hooked
and decided she might just like it.
So, amazingly she did come home, but she went back a few
months later. She then returned to get clean again and went
back a few months later. She overdosed multiple times, of
which I knew nothing until recently. Her boyfriend gave her
IV heroin while she was in the hospital being treated for
pneumonia to keep her habit going. He was the one, I found
out later, that he shot her up because she hated doing it. He
had developed a hold on her that was a bond of heroin high. I
knew the drug had gotten her when, due to the stress of
everything happening, I ended up in the hospital ruling out a
heart attack. She drove me there, dropped me off and went to
get high (I found out later). I ended up being fine, stress
of course, and she ended up going back home yet again. She
stayed clean after going into a rehab, which kicked her out
after 8 days because her insurance was declined. She then
attended NA--
Narcotics Anonymous--
meetings almost daily and got a job that she loved. In the
meantime, her boyfriend was found out through a ``random''
drug test and suspended. She was clean for 4 months, the
happiest four months of my life. We spoke every few days, or
texted. Her voice was truly hers again . . . her laughter,
her expressions, her humor. I felt she was finally back with
us. She had left her boyfriend and went into a sober living
home. Life was good and I was so grateful to have my
daughter, my best friend, back.
About 3 months into her sobriety she decided to reach out
and try to get her boyfriend sober as well, the beginning of
the end. At exactly month 4 she went to his house and he had
a ``surprise'' for her. She was new in her sobriety, just
once she said, and she fell back down the rabbit hole. I knew
when she didn't return my calls or texts that it was bad. But
finally she responded; she was back into it again, but she'd
get out she promised.
The next 8 months were a few weeks clean then back into
drugs again. I did not send her money. Honestly, she never
asked. She knew I'd never support her habit. Around
Thanksgiving 2015 she had had it. She called me and said she
wanted to get back into rehab and leave her boyfriend
permanently. Her life was no longer worth living. Weeks of
trying to get her into rehab went unsuccessfully when we
finally found Clean and Sober in Sacramento. At that point
she was clean two weeks, had slowly packed up or sold her
belongings and was ready for the break. But she had to sneak
out to get away from her very controlling, manipulative
partner; and she did.
The happy part: She is today 60 days sober. She has a new
job (She had been fired from the other one), which she loves.
She blocked her boyfriend from her phone, her email and her
facebook. She is the daughter, once again, that I know and
love, but I love her regardless of the disease of addiction.
Love the addict, hate the disease. And for right now I thank
God, pray alot, and take it one day at a time.
I have another one here I want to share with you. The thing I wanted
to share, Madam President, is this: My State and your State have
probably been hit as hard as any two States in the country. We have
people coming to us all the time. We are fighting every way we can. We
are introducing pieces of legislation. We are not worrying about who is
Republican or Democrat. How can we help Americans--the beautiful people
in New Hampshire, the wonderful people in West Virginia, who are facing
more deaths, more disease, more destruction to the family?
I want to share with you that when I first got elected--Senator Byrd
had died in 2010. I was Governor of the State of West Virginia. I had
to make a decision. I thought maybe I could come to Washington and help
with the experiences I had and what I had seen in my State and times.
We had challenges.
After I was elected to the Senate, I had gone back to Oceana, WV. At
that time it had been called ``Oxyana'' because drug use was so rampant
in this beautiful town. I remembered this town because when I was a
freshman in college, my roommate was from this town. It was the most
beautiful town I had been in. They had everything. What a privilege it
would have been to grow up in this beautiful town, but I could see many
years later it was not the town I knew or remembered in my mind. I went
to the middle school. These were all children in fifth to eighth grade.
I tried to give pep talks. I wanted to get them involved and tell them
how good they could be, how much we are counting on them, what they
need to get a good education and contribute something back to society,
and how fortunate and lucky they are to be in this little town.
After I finished speaking--they were attentive and cooperative--there
was a group of them. They asked: Can we talk to you privately? I will
never forget this. These were 12- and 13-year-old
[[Page S950]]
boys and girls. There had to be six or seven of them. I went in the
back room and sat at a table. They started talking and telling me their
stories. These were stories they had watched and were telling me. This
was the first time I had ever heard from a child up close and personal
who said: My dad worked at the mines. He had a back problem. He got
hurt. They kept giving him pills. We lost our house. Mom and dad were
fighting. They got divorced. We lost everything. I've got nothing now.
My grandparents were watching me while I was trying to take care of us.
My dad is an addict.
I heard these stories from these five kids. They were all pleading.
Now fast forward to the year 2015. I go back to the same school.
These kids that were 12 years old are now seniors in high school. The
same group wants to talk to me. They had lived a clean life, but I
think about what they have gone through and what they have seen. Then I
sit down with another group of 12- and 13-year-olds from the same area.
They are telling me stories about how they are watching their lives
before them when they watch a boyfriend or a stepfather because the
family had broken apart, the mother remarried or whatever, and the
person that she is with is a drug addict. This little child watches her
mother get shot up and killed because of the drugs the boyfriend shoots
into the mother. Can you imagine a 12- or 13-year-old having to live
with this and see this happen in their home?
What we are asking is simply for the Food and Drug Administration to
change, to be the watchdog to help us. They are supposed to protect us.
They don't say: I did my job. The pharmaceutical company told me they
made this drug, and this is the way it was made. This is what it was
supposed to do. We checked it out. Everything is fine; leave it on the
market.
You are not looking at the welfare of the people. You know what it
does. You know it is addictive. We have no treatment centers. We are
doing nothing to treat this. We are not challenging these
pharmaceutical companies who are good companies. They do a lot of good
and put a lot of products out there that are very good, but they are
bringing these opiates on the market quicker than ever before, more
powerful than ever before, and they know what is going to happen.
I am challenging all of them. I think the FDA should challenge them.
We are not going to approve more opiates. We are not going to let you
bring on the market stronger opiates that we know are addictive and
will ruin people's lives. If they will do that and challenge these
companies to come out with new research and development that can
scientifically give us relief needed for people who have chronic pain
without making them addicts who lose their lives--we should be able to
do that in this great country. I am going to read you a story from
Kentucky, my next door neighbor, the majority leader's home--Kentucky
and West Virginia. This is Emily from Louisville, KY.
My name is Emily Walden. I am a mother who lost my 21-year-
old son to a drug overdose in 2012. My son TJ came from a
good family, was a member of the Kentucky National Guard and
the most respectful young man you could have ever met. TJ
made an initial poor decision that led to an addiction to the
drug Opana; he had unlimited access to this drug during that
time. TJ did not want to die from this. He tried very hard to
overcome his addiction and I tried very hard to save his
life. I started researching the drug Opana about five years
ago and would like to share with you what I have learned that
illustrates the need for changes to our FDA policies and
approval processes for all opioid drugs.
The drug Opana contains the opioid Oxymorphone which was
removed from the market in 1979 due to the overdose deaths
and addiction this drug was causing across our country.
In 2002, the FDA started holding IMMPACT meetings every
year allowing pharmaceutical companies to pay money to be
included in discussions and changes to clinical trials,
design.
We call that pay to play--the impact it has because they
are able to go to these types of settings and get absolute
front row seats with the people they are trying to persuade
to take another look at these drugs that might have been
taken off the market because they were deemed too dangerous.
This is allowed to go on. It has been going on for far too
long, and the FDA is part of it. This is part of the change
that needs to be made and made immediately.
Endo Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of Opana, attended
each one of these ``pay-to-play'' meetings.
In 2003, Endo Pharmaceuticals brought the drug Opana to the
FDA for approval and was denied due to the overdoses that
occurred during the clinical trials.
In 2006, Endo Pharmaceuticals again brought the drug Opana
to the FDA for approval but this time using new clinical
trial that applied a modified process, called ``Enriched
Enrollment,'' which removed patients with preexisting opiate
sensitivities from the trial. The Enriched Enrollment process
skews results and seriously underestimates risks associated
with the proposed drug involved in the clinical trial. In
addition, the FDA ignored their own review guidance by
bypassing their advisory committee and approved Opana for
moderate to severe pain.
At the time Opana was approved, our country was already
experiencing an explosion of overdose deaths and addiction
from the overprescribing and misrepresentation of the safety
of opiates. In addition to causing thousands of deaths and
addiction, the approved use of Opana has now been directly
implicated in an outbreak of Hepatitis C and HIV cases in the
State of Indiana.
The FDA has continued to use Enriched Enrollment--
Or pay to play--
to approve new opiates and override or bypass altogether
their advisory committee for new opiate approvals and for new
uses of opiates further contributing to the overdose deaths
and addiction. These process changes must stop.
The year after my son died I traveled to Washington DC for
the first time in my life and was very fortunate to be able
to meet with the then Senate Minority Leader--
Now Senate majority leader--
Senator McConnell, the next year I had nine meetings which
included a meeting with then acting Director Botticelli of
ONDCP, DEA Administrator Michelle Leonhart and seven meetings
with Senator's staff. In 2015 I had thirteen meetings
scheduled. I am not going away! We need change to curb this
horrible epidemic that started with prescribed opiates and
the mistakes that were made need to be corrected.
How many people have to die? How many more people have to
become addicted? The FDA is sending the wrong message to
physicians by continuing to approve opioids during the worst
drug epidemic our country has ever faced.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). The Senator's postcloture time
has expired.
Mr. MANCHIN. I ask unanimous consent to continue.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MANCHIN. Thank you, Madam President.
The FDA is supposed to be protecting public health and yet
over 200,000 people have died and they have failed to put
appropriate restrictions on these dangerous drugs to prevent
overdose deaths. I want to know why there is one death from
something such as ecoli and every head of lettuce is pulled
from the shelves in ten different states but opioids have
killed thousands of people and they are considered safe and
effective? How can that be?
When is the FDA going to put human life before the
paychecks of Big Pharma? What will it take? A million deaths?
We need an FDA commissioner that will protect the citizens of
this country that is willing to take the overall best
interest of public safety into consideration and not allow
the pharmaceutical companies to have him in their back
pockets. My son TJ had a lifelong dream of joining the
military and fighting for his country. He would have given
his life to protect and serve. He was one of the most
patriotic young men and his country failed him. Please do the
right thing. Please do not let one more mother get a knock on
her door saying their child is gone and that they will never
[ever] come home [again]. There is no greater pain than
burying your child! My son, my precious child with the most
beautiful blue eyes, caring and loving heart, died in part by
the greed of big Pharma and--
Most importantly--
the carelessness of the FDA. It is time for change!
Another story from Kentucky. This is in Northern Kentucky and this is
Kimberly's story.
My name is Kimberly Wright. I am a [mother from Northern
Kentucky] who works in the trenches to save the lives of
people in my Community. NKY was hit by a pill epidemic around
2000. That pill Epidemic has now turned into a Heroin
Epidemic. Since 2013 the death toll continues to climb. In
2015 we have had 1,168 overdose reverses. We still await the
number of deaths. Our entire system is on the verge of
collapse--our Courts, Police, Children's Services, Jails. Our
jails currently have 99% Heroin and Pill cases housed in the
jails. Our Treatment system is seriously strained with not 1
new bed added in the last 10 years since this epidemic
started. We are in a War in [Northern Kentucky]. Every day we
wait to see how many died that day. We have people getting in
their cars driving high on pills and Heroin wrecking into
innocent people and killing them. This is the United States
of America and this is a shame. We allow the FDA and Big
Pharma to profit off the deaths of an entire generation of
young people. We are in effect losing 2 jumbo jets full of
kids every day
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in America due to Pills and Heroin. We need help. We are
begging for help to stop this madness. Our American families
are losing our children at an alarming rate to
overprescribing Drs and Big Pharma. We beg you, please help
us stop this.
I lost my sister Alicia Cook on October 26, 2010, to an
overdose. Alicia was a nurse with 2 young daughters. This
Epidemic has no boundaries and it's in every community in the
Country. Northern Kentucky has the highest rates of HEPC,
surpassing the National Level, due to heroin and pills being
injected. We have a high rate of homeless children due to
their parents being dead or drug addicted with no end in
sight. We have 52% of grandparents raising their
grandchildren due to death and addiction. This is a nightmare
for parents. When our children were born we could have never
imagined this would be our life. You don't sleep at night
from the anxiety of wondering if you are the next parent to
get that call that your child has overdosed. It's like being
in a constant panic attack. It's not normal to grieve the
loss of a child who is alive, for they are truly lost. I
[know lots of] parents who have lost their child and I can't
imagine their pain and grief. I grieve for my addicted 26-
year-old daughter who is in the fight of her life [because
of] her Addiction. I watch her destroying herself every day.
I don't want to join the mothers who have lost their child to
this Epidemic. I know how I suffer now and I just can't go
there. I will continue to fight for my community. Will you
[please] join me?
That is Arlene's story.
Indiana is one of the States that has been hit so hard also. This is
Danielle's story from Southern Indiana.
My name is Danielle McCowan. I live in southern Indiana and
work as a server. About 2 and a half years ago a customer by
the name of Josh Harvey left me his number. At the time he
told me he was living in Chicago for school. Little did I
know he was in rehab there. Granted, I didn't know about his
addiction for over a year because we hadn't stayed in
constant contact. Over a year or so ago I found out about his
heroin addiction. He still told me little about it. I do know
it started out with prescription pills and later went to
heroin when the pills became harder to get. He served a month
in jail in Michigan for the entire month of this past July
over a heroin related charge. He came home immediately after
and overdosed that same weekend. Luckily, his dad saved him
that time. Now he got enrolled in college and was going to an
outpatient program doing better. Or so we all thought. School
let out for break and I guess it all went downhill. He came
to me on November the 4th telling me he had used a couple of
times and wanted my advice. I suggested an in-patient
program. He went to Wellstone after he left my house. He sat
for several hours and finally was given a room. I went and
checked on him 2 different times while he waited to make sure
he was there. Thursday I didn't receive any calls. Friday
nothing either. Then Saturday morning, the 7th of November,
his mother called me to break my heart. He had passed away
that Friday, the 6th, over in Louisville and didn't know who
to contact until that Saturday morning, I guess. He had
checked himself out of Wellstone, broke into his house, took
his Xbox which he later either pawned or traded for heroin.
Never in a million years did I think I'd become close to
anybody addicted to heroin. It doesn't discriminate. It can
get ahold of any and everybody. Never in my life have I been
so depressed or heartbroken. All I want is his story shared.
He was my happy ending gone away too soon.
They continue. They continue on, these stories, the heartaches and
the lives destroyed, lives changed. Few too many lives are saved.
Massachusetts. As the Presiding Officer knows, Senator Markey has
been working with me very closely and all of us on this horrible
epidemic that we have. This is Sara's story. She is from Amherst, MA.
My nuclear family is middle class or the working poor, but
it is blended in that I was raised by my mother and step-dad,
but my bio father's side of the family would be considered
well-off. Heroin first came to my radar after my brother
Donny became addicted to pain pills after surgery, and heroin
followed suit after RX's stopped. Then it seemed like it was
everywhere around me: my nephew, my niece. Then we lost my
cousin Cory, who passed in a sober house for his addiction to
alcohol, along with a needle and an empty bag next to him.
Cory is an example of a young man institutionalized by
multiple incarcerations and just when he would try to lift
himself up, in he would go again. He was trying to get clean
for his girlfriend and unborn child when he passed away, and
he was happy, thinking he was getting better. Living with
someone close who struggles and then multiply that by two,
and adolescence, young adulthood mixed in, and you have my
descent as an empathetic aunt who felt powerless to change
anything.
Then the bottom dropped out. My cousin, John Ahern, passed
at the end of August after a long period of recovery alone in
the woods. It didn't matter he came from privilege or was the
nicest person I had every known in my life for so long. He
leaves behind three loving sons. They both couldn't access
the help they needed at various stages, including recovery,
and died alone.
It is my mission to stand up for them and the young people
like my niece who began her struggle at 14, and now
approaching 18 has some clean time. There are no support
programs in my community for this age group, and especially
for non-White young people like my niece and nephew. They are
both of Latino descent. Please do something.
People are begging us everywhere in this country to help them, and
basically it starts with treating this as an illness and not as a
crime. It starts also with having clinics, having basic places where we
can serve them and help them get clean. They cannot do it by
themselves, and they are the first to tell you. The stories I am
reading here exemplify that so well.
I have a Florida story here, and Florida has also been ravaged.
Florida was a problem that we had in West Virginia because of the pill
mills there. People would take the bus down or they could take a cheap
flight down to Florida, buy all the pills they could and come back.
Florida has been very helpful in the last years trying to stop the pill
epidemic.
This is Janet from Fort Lauderdale.
Dear Senator Manchin. I appreciate you taking the time to
stop the appointment of Dr. Califf from becoming the FDA
commissioner. I founded STOPPnow--Stop the Organized Pill
Pushers now--due to all the drug-addicted babies I was caring
for as a neonatal intensive care nurse at a children's
hospital in Broward County, FL. We started holding protests
in front of the 150 pill mills that were in Broward County
alone. Many parents came out to protest with us. Parents from
all over the country contacted us as well. Too many parents
are crying themselves to sleep over the loss of their child.
At first, there were no consequences for either the clinic
owner or the doctor. Then they started arresting the doctors
for money laundering. Our State's attorney has called the
doctors drug dealers in white coats. The Board of Medicine is
not protecting the public by allowing high-prescribing
doctors to keep their license. Therefore, the plight of the
drug-addicted babies and the devastation to the families
continues to rise. When one clinic owner was arrested, he was
earning $150,000 a day.
I repeat, $150,000 a day.
Not one doctor in that clinic to date has lost his license
or his practice.
We only have the judicial system helping to alleviate this
in Florida. Doctors are now being charged with first-degree
murder. It would be kinder for a doctor to lose his license
than to sit in a courtroom at their own murder trial.
We have been unsuccessful in our efforts for lawmakers to
mandate that prescribers use the prescription drug monitoring
program in Florida. Yet in this environment, there is a bill
passing through the committees allowing nurse practitioners
and physician assistants to prescribe narcotics without a
doctor signing off on the order. I would support this bill if
they included the mandate. And, of course, the FDA approved
that children as young as 11 years old can be prescribed
OxyContin. We definitely need an investigation.
Madam President, as you can see, these are problems that we have all
over the country. This is not just your State and not just my State. I
know it is hard. They say we need someone in there, so let's just go
ahead and confirm Dr. Califf. Dr. Califf is an honorable man. He is
still there. He is going to be there. He has been there for 1 year. In
the 1 year that he has been there, we have basically put more opiate
drugs on the market without even going through a clinical overview. If
that change were going to come, it would have come by now. I am sure he
could have had input, and I would hope that he would.
Dr. Califf has called a lot of our colleagues and said that these
changes will be coming. This Senator will tell you the changes they
recommended when they said they were going to make changes. They said:
We are going to make sure that we are going to start listening to our
staff and people who are reviewing these drugs.
They are going to listen to them, but there is no mandate that they
will have to follow.
This Senator has a piece of legislation that the Presiding Officer
coauthored, and I appreciate that very much. Basically what we are
saying is this: When you have your advisory committee--and every drug
must go through an advisory committee's opinion, and if they recommend
as they did with Zohydro to not let it go on the market, that cannot be
bypassed, neglected, or pushed aside. Our bill would basically state
that they must bring it to the people's representatives in Congress and
state why it is so very important for them to bring this new high-
powered drug to the market--as if we don't have enough.
The United States has 5 percent of the world's population but
consumes 80
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percent of these addictive opiate drugs. Something is wrong. Something
must change.
I thank the Presiding Officer for allowing me to be able to read the
letters of people who have been affected by this all over this great
country in all of our States. I know we feel the pain, and we are going
to try to make these changes and make sure this agency will do what it
is supposed to do.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.