[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2909-S2911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            OPIOID EPIDEMIC

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, talking about the opioid issue, sadly, 
this is gripping my State of Ohio in a way that has caused us to have 
more deaths by opioids than any other cause of death. But it is not 
just Ohio; it is an epidemic because now, nationally, it is the No. 1 
cause of accidental death, and for Americans under 50, it is the No. 1 
cause of death, period. This makes it the worst drug epidemic we have 
faced in this country--the worst since, we will recall, back in the 
1980s and 1990s when we were very concerned about cocaine and other 
drugs. This has become the worst drug epidemic we have ever faced.
  We had a tele-townhall meeting this week where I called several 
thousand Ohioans. We had about 20,000 people on the call at any one 
time. During that call, we had a survey question. Among other 
questions, it asked about opioids, and it asked a very simple question: 
Do you know someone who has been personally affected? Have you been or 
do you know someone who has been personally affected by this opioid 
epidemic? The numbers were shocking this week. Typically, over half of 
the callers say yes. That is how bad it is in Ohio. This week, it was 
66 percent--two-thirds of the callers. Thousands of people in Ohio 
reported back from a tele-townhall. So it is not a self-selected group; 
it is people who have called in to talk about various issues, and 66 
percent said they know someone who has been directly affected by this 
opioid addiction issue.
  It has unfolded in three waves. The first wave was really 
prescription drugs, and this was back in the late 1990s and into the 
2000s. There were pill mills in Southern Ohio and other States. 
Kentucky and West Virginia were hit hard. This was medication that was 
being abused, in many cases leading to an addiction.
  The second wave was the heroin wave. This was when heroine became 
more readily available and was actually less expensive than 
prescription drugs, and many people turned to heroin. That heroin led 
to many more overdoses and other issues, including diseases associated 
with the use of needles, hepatitis C and others.
  Now there is a new wave, and the new wave, sadly, is even more deadly 
than the first two. It is what is called synthetic opioids or synthetic 
heroin. The one that you have probably heard of is called fentanyl, 
sometimes carfentanil, which is even more powerful. It is truly at 
epidemic levels in my State, and it is being made worse by this new 
wave of synthetic heroin.
  There are other drugs, as well, that are affecting us in our country. 
In my own State, in some regions of Ohio, crystal meth now coming up 
from Mexico is creating a bigger problem. Cocaine is certainly an 
issue. But as I have looked at the statistics and traveled the State, 
it is clear that our No. 1 issue is opioids and that synthetic 
opioids--50 times more potent than heroin--are the new face of the 
opioid epidemic.
  Fentanyl was involved in about 37 percent of the deaths in Ohio as 
recently as 2015. By 2016, it was responsible for 58 percent of the 
overdose deaths. So it has gone from 37 percent to 58 percent in 1 
year. We don't have all the numbers yet for 2017, but unfortunately the 
numbers we do have from various regions of the State indicate that 2017 
is going to be just as bad, if not worse. Columbus, OH, as an example, 
has seen a staggering increase in opioid overdoses due to fentanyl. 
Two-thirds of the county's 2017 overdose deaths were due to fentanyl--
two-thirds.
  I am told by law enforcement that fentanyl--again, this drug that is 
so deadly that a few flakes of it can kill you--has also been sprinkled 
into other drugs. I have talked to recovering addicts who told me their 
stories about finding out that they were actually taking fentanyl when 
they thought they were taking another drug. It has been sprinkled into 
other street drugs, according to law enforcement and some of these 
recovering addicts I have talked to, including cocaine, even including 
marijuana, and including heroin.
  Just last week, two men in the Toledo area were arrested for drug 
conspiracy with the intent to distribute. A little more than half a 
pound of fentanyl was seized upon their arrest. Half a pound of 
fentanyl would be equivalent to about 1 cup of fentanyl--small enough 
to fit into a ziplock bag in your kitchen. Yet that one drug seizure of 
1 cup was enough fentanyl, according to experts, to kill 16,000 people. 
Remember, just a few flecks of it can

[[Page S2910]]

kill you. That is more than half of the population of Toledo, where 
this arrest took place. That is how dangerous these drugs are.
  Fentanyl comes mostly from laboratories in China, and mostly it is 
shipped to the United States through a Federal agency; this is, the 
U.S. Postal Service. It is unbelievable to me that we are not doing 
more to push back on this given that it is actually a government entity 
through which the experts say most of this fentanyl is coming in, 
primarily from one country, primarily through the post office.
  We looked into this in an 18-month investigation in the Senate 
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which I chair. Our 
investigators revealed just how easy it is to purchase fentanyl online 
and have it shipped to the United States. The drugs can be found 
through a simple Google search, and overseas sellers essentially 
guarantee delivery if the fentanyl is sent through the U.S. Postal 
Service.
  I have spent time talking to Postal Service employees about this, 
including back home in Ohio, and they don't want to be any part of 
this. No. 1, it is very dangerous. You can imagine, if these packages 
leak--I talked earlier about the dangers of fentanyl--people can be 
subjected to it, exposed to it, overdose themselves, even die. Also, 
they don't want to be any part of it because they don't want to see 
these poisons coming into our country--that they are delivering--and 
going to an empty warehouse or a post office box or even being 
delivered to someone's home, and during our investigation, we found all 
three. We found in several instances that people had received fentanyl 
through the mail and then had died of overdoses. We would have tracked 
that from hearing who had died and being able to track some of the 
payments and shipments. So there is no question that people are 
receiving fentanyl at their homes and taking it and dying. No one wants 
to be a part of that.

  Why is the post office the preferred way for these drugs to come? Why 
do the traffickers say: If you send it through the post office, then 
delivery is guaranteed. It is really pretty simple. The U.S. Postal 
Service is exempt from a Federal law that was passed post-9/11. In 
2002, Congress passed a law that required the private carriers--think 
FedEx or DHL or UPS--to get advance electronic data from their 
customers, which would then be provided to law enforcement, and it 
would tell law enforcement where the package is from, what is in the 
package, and where it is going. With that information, using big data 
analytics, Customs and Border Protection has been able to identify 
suspicious packages because they have this data on the packages coming 
in--every package, 100 percent of the packages. They then are able to 
pull these packages off line, test them, and not have this poison come 
into our communities.
  The same is not true, unfortunately, with regard to the U.S. Postal 
Service. Until we began this congressional investigation and began to 
push the Postal Service, there was very little electronic data being 
provided on any packages from the Postal Service. Now, remember, there 
are 900 million packages coming in a year. How can law enforcement 
possibly find the suspect packages without having this data and without 
having good detection equipment to be able to find it? It is like 
finding a needle in a haystack. But with this information, they are 
able to be much more effective, as they have been with these private 
carriers--DHL, UPS, FedEx, and so on.
  Under pressure from Congress, over the last year or so, the Postal 
Service has been getting some data on international packages. Last 
year, they received data on about 36 percent of their packages, based 
on the testimony they have given us, meaning that the United States 
received about 318 million packages without any of the screening, 
without any of this data on it at all. So 36 percent is an improvement, 
but still the vast majority of packages are not being stopped.
  By the way, 20 percent of the packages that were identified by law 
enforcement as being problematic based on the amount of electronic data 
that was provided--20 percent of those packages were not presented to 
law enforcement, based on the testimony we received.
  Finally, we learned that even though 36 percent of the packages had 
some sort of data, much of that data was not useful. It was not 
decipherable, not helpful for law enforcement.
  So we have a long way to go, and we have a crisis in front of us. It 
is time for Congress to act because it is clear to me that the Postal 
Service needs this congressional mandate to more expeditiously close 
this loophole that is allowing this deadly poison to continue coming 
into our homes and onto our streets.
  Again, this is the No. 1 killer in my home State of Ohio, and when we 
look nationally, this is the new face of the opioid epidemic. There is 
legislation to deal with this. It is called the STOP Act. It is a 
bipartisan bill I introduced with Senator Amy Klobuchar. She spoke on 
the floor earlier. We talked earlier about getting this legislation 
passed. This legislation will close the loophole. It will insist that 
our international mail screening take place, and it will stop some of 
this deadly fentanyl from coming into our communities. It will simply 
hold the Postal Service to the same standard as private mail carriers 
and require that within 1 year, they get electronic data on all 
packages entering the United States. It is fair, it is commonsense, and 
it is going to make a big difference in our communities.
  By the way, that is why about one-third of the Senate and about half 
of the House of Representatives have already signed on as cosponsors of 
our legislation. It is bipartisan. It is bicameral. The President's 
Opioid Commission--we remember that President Trump asked a bunch of 
experts to come together, led by Governor Chris Christie, to have a 
commission look at this opioid issue and come up with recommendations. 
One of the recommendations: Pass the STOP Act. Keep some of this 
fentanyl out of our country.
  Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee took up our 
legislation, and I appreciate their doing that. Sadly, what they 
reported out was a weaker version of the STOP Act than is necessary to 
address this problem.
  Their version gives the Postal Service, as an example, 4 years to 
implement these changes at a time when this is a crisis. Remember, it 
is increasing every year, to the point of being the No. 1 cause of 
death in my State and in many other States.
  It also only requires them to get data on 95 percent of packages--not 
100 percent--eventually.
  It also gives the Federal Government the ability to waive the 
requirement altogether if it is ``in the national security interest of 
the United States.'' I hate to see them use that waiver. How could it 
possibly be in the national security interest of the United States of 
America not to have information to give to law enforcement to stop 
something this deadly from coming into our country? That makes no 
sense. I know from what I have seen and heard in Ohio that we need this 
and we need it now. We need this data on all foreign packages. That is 
in our national security interest, not setting lower screening 
standards or creating a loophole to evade accountability.
  I am encouraged that the Ways and Means Committee chairman, Kevin 
Brady, has acknowledged these concerns. By the way, having spoken to 
him, I know he has a passion for addressing this issue.
  I know he is personally committed to coming up with legislation that 
works. We need to resolve these differences, get this legislation to 
the floor of the House and the Senate, and get it passed so that we can 
begin to stop the fentanyl flooding into our country. It is at the 
forefront of the epidemic that we see around the country. It is taking 
lives. It is sidelining workers.
  The No. 1 cause of crime in my State is related to opioids. Often, 
the criminal acts committed--such as burglary, shoplifting, and fraud--
are to pay for the habit. It is crippling communities. It is breaking 
families apart. It is doing so at an alarming rate.
  This morning, we had testimony in the Committee on Finance regarding 
rural healthcare, and some of the providers were talking about the 
fentanyl crisis. I asked them what they are doing about it and how it 
is going, particularly with regard to kids who were born with what is 
called neonatal abstinence syndrome, meaning they were

[[Page S2911]]

born to an addicted mother, and they have to be taken through 
withdrawal as a baby. These little babies you could hold in the palm of 
your hand are having to go through withdrawal.
  They told me that the foster care systems in their States are 
overwhelmed; mine is, in Ohio. We have more kids under State 
supervision and in foster care than ever. We can't find foster families 
fast enough because so many of the parents are unable to take care of 
the kids. There are more grandparents and great-grandparents than ever 
having to step forward and take care of these kids. It is affecting our 
communities in so many ways.
  The STOP Act alone isn't going to solve of all of these problems. We 
get that. We have passed legislation around here in the last year and a 
half to increase prevention and education and to increase treatment and 
longer term recovery. That is very important, and we need to do more of 
it. We have new legislation to take that to the next level.
  But combating this crisis at its source by making it harder for drugs 
to enter our country is certainly a step we can, and should, take. It 
is only common sense. At the very least, it would reduce supply and 
help to drive up the cost of this drug. One of our problems is that the 
drug is powerful, but it is also relatively inexpensive.
  We have an opportunity with the STOP Act to make a real difference 
for families in every single State represented in this Chamber. If you 
are not already a cosponsor, I hope you will join us in this effort. If 
you are a cosponsor and you support this, I hope you will talk to your 
leadership, both sides of the aisle.
  Let's get this to the floor. Let's get a vote. Let's ensure we are 
doing everything we possibly can to stop this poison.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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