[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3176-S3178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Opioid Crisis

  Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I rise to speak with a lot of my 
colleagues coming down speaking on the opiate crisis we have in all of 
our States.
  West Virginia has been hit the hardest in the Nation right now, and I 
want to speak to this because it is something we must address. This has 
been a silent killer for far too long.
  I don't know a person who I have ever met who doesn't know somebody 
in their immediate family, extended family, or close friends who has 
not been affected by either prescription drug abuse or illicit drug 
use. With that, here we are.
  I rise with my colleagues who have been coming down--they will be 
coming the rest of the day--to bring attention to this national crisis 
that is devastating every community. Many of the Senators you are going 
to hear from--and have already heard from--are from States that are 
dealing with an increase in this opiate abuse, just like my State of 
West Virginia. Just like I have, they have heard from families, 
community leaders who are on the front lines. They are begging for 
solutions, funding, and they need facilities to properly combat the 
scourge we have right now.
  Let me say to everybody who is watching, everybody who is listening 
in any way, shape, or form that you are hearing this: 20 years, 30 
years ago, I was as guilty as everybody in the public policy arena in 
government, in my State government in West Virginia. If you fooled with 
drugs back then, we thought, well, we will put you in prison; you 
committed a crime. Well, guess what. We have been putting them away for 
20, 30 years, and we never cured a single soul.
  Finally, we have come to the realization that addiction is an 
illness. Any other illness gets treatment. So we need treatment, but we 
don't have treatment centers. Budgets are tight.
  I have a cousin who is a judge. Every day he says: Joe, I sentence 
people for the crimes they commit every day. He says: I have never had 
the first person say: Hey, Judge, we don't have a prison cell or a jail 
cell to put this person in. But if it happens once a day, it will 
happen 5 or 10 times a day, if I believe someone needs to get treatment 
because of their addiction, they will say: Well, Judge, I am sorry. We 
have no place to put them. We have no treatment centers. We will find a 
jail cell for you, but we will not find a treatment center because we 
don't have them.
  The States don't have the money. Counties don't have the money. 
Municipalities don't have the money. The Federal Government has never 
dedicated enough money for this. So we keep talking about everything 
that happens.
  Last year, over 800 West Virginians died of prescription drug abuse. 
They died of abuse from prescription drugs, and everyone says: Well, 
how do people get started? I don't know. Most of them have done heavy 
work in West Virginia. We do mining and manufacturing. That is heavy 
work, and sometimes they get hurt.
  I am going to read a letter later--I do every week try to come down 
to put real families, real faces, for you all to understand that this 
is a real issue.
  When I have said this is a silent killer, we never talk about it. If 
you have somebody addicted in your family, you are kind of ashamed of 
it. You don't want anybody to know because they think that something is 
wrong with your family if someone has an addiction. They try to take 
care of themselves and they can't and that person doesn't get the help 
they need.
  So when you look back at the use and the lack of a treatment, let me 
just tell you about the epidemic we are dealing with. Any other 
epidemic of this sort--and knowing it is an illness, it can be called a 
pandemic. Remember the Ebola concerns we had. All of the different 
things we were concerned about that could turn into a pandemic, we 
acted immediately. Well, we haven't acted immediately on this. We have 
had over 200,000 West Virginians die since the turn of the century. 
That is unbelievable, and to not do anything about it and keep our 
mouths shut, we have done that for far too long.
  Today, 2.1 million Americans abuse or depend on their opiates. 
According to the CDC, Centers for Disease Control, three out of four 
new heroin users abuse prescription opiates before moving to heroin. I 
am told they move to heroin because it is cheaper, but they have 
already been hooked and addicted. Most of them got hooked and addicted 
on legal prescription drugs. That means there was some doctor who said: 
Here is something that is really going to help you, and they write that 
prescription. They think everything in a bottle is going to heal you.
  In the United States of America, less than 5 percent of the world 
population--7.2 billion people live on planet Earth, less than 330 
million in this country--4.6 percent of the world population consumes 
80 percent of all the opiates produced and consumed in the world. What 
in the world happened to us? How did we become so pain-intolerant? How 
did we become so addicted?
  Between 2009 and 2013, only 22 percent of Americans suffering from 
opiate addiction participated in any form of addiction treatment, and 
more and more people go without treatment every day.
  Misuse and abuse of opiates cost the country an estimated $78.5 
billion in 2013 just in lost productivity. So for those people who 
don't have compassion, don't think we should be doing these things, and 
you only look at the bottom line, if you are going to the bottom line, 
look at this bottom line: $78 billion of lost productivity, medical 
costs, and criminal costs.

[[Page S3177]]

  Talk to any of your law enforcement in any community you live in and 
ask them: Of all the calls you have gone on, how many have you gone on 
that are drug-related? A minimum of 80 to 90 percent of everything that 
they are called in, any type of assistance, any type of a crime that is 
committed, it is because of drugs. Some form of drugs are involved for 
our police. So think about what they are doing and how it takes them 
away from protecting the law-abiding citizens.
  I have a bill called--and we will talk about treatment--it is 
LifeBOAT. I am still waiting for some of my friends and fellow 
colleagues on the Republican side to look at this bill very seriously. 
All I am asking for is one penny to charge the pharmaceutical 
manufacturers--one penny per milligram--that will go toward treatment 
centers throughout America, and every State needs them.
  That one penny, they said: That is a new tax. We can't vote for a new 
tax. I said: Wait a minute. This opiate arena is pretty profitable, and 
we are not going to charge people whom opiates were designed for, which 
are people with severe illnesses, cancer patients. Basically, this is 
just for opiates, no other pharmaceutical products, just opiates. That 
is $1.5 to $2 billion a year. Can you believe that? That one penny.
  Now, when they tell me, I am not going to vote for any new tax. I 
say: Well, you didn't hesitate to vote for a tobacco tax. You didn't 
hesitate to vote for an alcohol tax.
  We have more people dying of this than anything else, and I am asking 
for a treatment plan. I can't get one penny, not one penny.
  So I am asking for everyone to consider it. I truly believe no one 
would lose their election over voting to fund treatment centers for 
people who are desperately in need. That is the LifeBOAT Act.
  I want to read you a letter, and I do this every week. It is just 
heartbreaking, these letters, but it shows real people's lives, and it 
shows what it has done to their lives.
  This letter is from Shadd Baisden. He writes:
  My name is Shadd Baisden, and I am from Dingess, WV. I am writing to 
tell you my story of opioid addiction. I am an out-of-work coal miner 
with 9 years' experience. I was injured in the mine in 2011. I was 
dragged down a belt line 200 feet and messed the disks in my back, the 
L5, S1 in my back. This was how my addiction got started.
  I was prescribed painkillers and needed surgery but felt I was too 
young for that. I was out of work for a year when I decided to settle 
my compensation claim so I could return back to work. While I was 
injured, the mine I worked in shut down so I had no job to go back to. 
I had been on painkillers the whole time I was out of work, but I 
stopped being prescribed after my settlement.
  So when he made his settlement, basically that went away, his 
healthcare on that. So he had no other way of getting prescribed 
medicine.
  He continues:
  I was buying them off the street just to ease my pain. In 2013, I 
started using oxycodone and could not stop. I even got my wife hooked 
on them.
  I have three daughters--11, 10, and 3 years of age. My youngest 
wasn't born at the time. Our addiction became so bad that we would 
steal things from our family just to get the drugs. I lost my license 
to drive. I lost my two oldest daughters because of my addiction. That 
is when I knew I had to have serious help.
  I sought counseling and treatment. I took parenting classes, and my 
wife and I worked our tails off to get our girls back. We have now been 
clean and sober for 3 years and have custody back of all three of our 
girls.
  I am currently out of work but do lots of odd jobs in my area because 
I can't afford to get my license back, and the vehicle I own was 
vandalized 3 months ago because I gave an officer info on a dealer not 
far from my home, and somehow the dealer found out and beat the windows 
out of my car while I was working.
  I thank God every day for helping me and my wife stay clean.
  I thank you for everything you do for the people of West Virginia and 
hope my story helps someone. I may be out of work right now, but good 
things will come as long as we stay clean and positive.
  Now, the conclusion of this is Shadd and his wife are perfect 
examples of the people we can help if we made it easier for people 
dealing with substance abuse to get treatment. Shadd and his wife are 
the people I am fighting for every day. I will continue to fight for 
the people and families and children who have lost their way and need 
our help, and I am not going to stop fighting until they get it.
  Every one of you all probably have a story. Every one of our young 
people--our pages and everybody else, everyone in the audience, whoever 
it may be, younger people--have probably been approached to try 
something, have probably been approached in their own schools to try 
something: Well, this is no problem. It is the hip thing to do in 
school.
  They have recreational marijuana. A lot of people tell me they get 
started by experimenting, and then it moves into different things.
  I don't know what it is. We don't know what our body chemistry is 
made up of. We don't know why some people are addicted and some people 
don't get addicted, but we know opiates are extremely addictive. We 
know that. It affects you. The only thing I can tell you is, it is 
something we are going to continue to fight. We are going to make 
people aware. We are starting education classes.
  The United States of America should start educating in every class 
from preschool, kindergarten--you are not too young to know what this 
can do to you--all the way up through adulthood. We have to prevent 
people from getting on these horrific drugs that are killing people. 
Then we have to treat the people who are addicted and get them back 
into the workforce.
  I ask all of you--and the concern we have, and I know in your 
beautiful State you have the same challenges we do. We all do. We are 
willing to fight together. This is a bipartisan effort. This is not one 
side and the other side taking credit or one side blaming the other 
side. This is one that we have to rise up as Americans--forget about 
Democrats and Republicans--and fight this. The U.S. Congress is 
responsible for fighting it and helping the people all over our 
country.
  I yield the floor to my good friend from West Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia 
who is fighting hard on a lot of different fronts to meet the challenge 
of this opioid and drug abuse epidemic that is sweeping across the 
country, and it is really hitting us in the rural areas in West 
Virginia. I always say our State is just one big small town, and both 
Senator Manchin and I have personal experience with families who have 
been deeply affected by this. It is destroying families, lives, and 
futures.
  Chances are we all know someone, as I said, who has been affected, 
but we have been especially hard-hit in the State of West Virginia, and 
we have seen more than our fair share of devastating consequences: 
babies born exposed to drugs, families torn apart, children ripped from 
their parents because of their parents' habits and lifestyle, 
grandparents raising children when they had no real intention or didn't 
know that is what was going to happen.
  We have the unfortunate distinction as a State of leading the Nation 
in drug overdose deaths per capita. Ninety-one Americans die each day 
because of this crisis, and far too many of them are our neighbors, our 
coworkers, our friends, and our children. No community is immune. That 
is why this all-hands-on-deck, community-oriented, coordinated, 
community-focused effort must move forward.
  Fortunately, many individuals and organizations--and I get to meet 
with them regularly. It is inspiring to hear how people in the 
community are pulling together. They are already working hard 
educating--as Senator Manchin said, you can't start too early 
educating--treating, and rehabilitating people who are struggling with 
abuse within their families, helping them and those who are at risk of 
becoming addicted. From healthcare to law enforcement, we are working 
to tackle this crisis from all angles.
  Drug courts play an important role in that fight. In order to get at 
the root

[[Page S3178]]

of the problem, we must have more recovery and treatment services, and 
incarceration is not always the right answer. Sometimes treatment, not 
the criminal justice system, is the answer.
  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting an incredible young woman--
inspirational, really--who knows all of this very well. Her name is 
Chelsea Carter, and she is from Logan, WV. When she met me yesterday, 
she said: We met. We met 10 years ago.
  I said: Really? Where did we meet?
  She said: I did your nails at Spa Bliss.
  I said: Oh, well, thank you for that.
  But along that journey, Chelsea has had a rough, rough go. At one 
point, Chelsea was charged with 17 felonies due to her drug habit. She 
told me her drug habit began when she was 12 years old. She said she 
was able to continue life through high school. It appeared as though 
she had a normal life. She was a cheerleader, participated in school, 
and all the time she was getting deeper and crawling deeper into a 
drug-addicted hole.
  After she faced the criminal justice system, she became committed to 
getting off drugs and getting clean the very first night she spent in 
jail, and she has been clean ever since. She went through the drug 
court system, and, basically, it has saved her life. But that is not 
the end of the story for Chelsea. She has a bright future ahead of her, 
and she has moved forward.
  She was in town for the annual conference of the National Association 
of Drug Court Professionals. She has committed her life to helping 
people like her who have had this situation and who have been at the 
bottom of the pit of hopelessness, bad health, and bad decisionmaking. 
She is committed to helping her fellow West Virginians crawl out of 
that pit, like she did, and become productive individuals. This is the 
world's largest conference on treatment courts and criminal justice 
reform.
  Back home in Logan, Chelsea is the program director at Appalachian 
Health Services. She just got her master's degree. One of the things 
that struck me is that, even in a management position, she continues to 
counsel and treat a full load of patients, and she told me she will 
always do so.
  Chelsea's story is an example of the progress that can be made by 
fully committing to fighting the drug epidemic. There are victories and 
programs that work. Drug court is not the only one, but it is one in 
the spectrum of solutions.
  I am committed to the fight and to working with all of our colleagues 
who are speaking out today. I know many of us are committed to this. It 
doesn't leave a family or community untouched. I am really inspired by 
West Virginians like Chelsea Carter who are on the frontlines.
  With that, I yield for my colleague from Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. HELLER. Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank my friend from West 
Virginia.