Opioid Abuse Across the Nation

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. We all know and appreciate his background and his experience in healthcare and the wonderful wisdom that he brings to us on the Education and the Workforce Committee, not only on this issue, but on so many issues facing Americans today.

As the gentleman pointed out, the health and stability of our communities are in serious trouble because of opioid abuse across the Nation.

Since 1999, the opioid death toll has quadrupled. There are many estimates of how many Americans die in a single day because of opioids, and we are so sorry to hear of any deaths from opioids.

It is heartbreaking that all of those estimates are in the hundreds. These people were fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, neighbors, coworkers, and friends. They were real people in our communities.

I have had families from the Fifth District come to see me to share their heartbreaking stories of family members, often adult children, who have died from opioids. My own heart breaks for them and the pain they are feeling for their tragic loss.

There are newspaper stories and obituaries in newspapers reporting on opioid abuse and deaths and its devastating impact every day.

As opioids continue to claim the lives of Americans in cities and towns across the Nation, it is our responsibility to work together to find solutions that will bring relief to American communities.

The Committee on Education and the Workforce has recently held two hearings on opioids, and we have learned from employers, educators, local leaders, and addiction experts about how chronic and rising rates of opioid misuse and abuse are impacting families, schools, workplaces, and communities as a whole. We have heard about how the epidemic's societal burden on households and the private sector exceeded $46 billion in 2016.

In schools, many principals attribute a recent decline in attendance to parents not getting up and having their students attend school because the parents are using drugs and they are not able to either take the children to school or have them ready to ride a bus.

I am pleased to share the floor tonight with my colleagues from the Education and the Workforce Committee, who have not only had hard conversations with their constituents about the toll opioid abuse has taken on their communities, but they have been having productive and helpful conversations with each other about possible solutions.

There is no single answer to solving the opioid problem, but if we are to bring this deadly chapter to an early close, we will need collaboration across the aisle, ingenuity, and a uniting commitment to bringing peace and healing to our communities.

I will once again yield to my colleague Mr. Thompson for any closing comments he would like to make.

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Thompson, and I know the people of his district are well served by him. I thank him for his service on our committee, on the Agriculture Committee, and all that he does to help us write good legislation and pass good legislation.

As Congressman Thompson said, unfortunately, this problem with opioids affects people at all ages and in all walks of life, at every income level, every category of people--male, female, old, young--but we particularly grieve over the young people.

We have heard about babies becoming addicted because their mothers were addicted and of the work that is done to help those babies become free from opioid addiction.

We have heard about the veterans who become addicted because of the treatment that they have received. We know nobody is attempting to get anyone addicted to opioids or anything else, for that matter, but we realize that over the years, we have had stronger use of these drugs than we probably should have had used.

There are many ways to approach pain relief and pain management, and, unfortunately, in the past, too often it has been the path of least resistance.

We do hear over and over the stories about young people who suddenly get addicted because of surgery or an injury, and it happens sometimes very, very quickly.

As Representative Thompson has said, it has a huge impact on jobs. We have, right now, 6 million unfilled jobs in this country, and the reasons are very many; but some of the reason is because we have so many people addicted to opioids and other drugs, and they are simply unable to pass drug tests.

We hoped, by this graphic here, to illustrate that the problem with opioids is very close to all of us at home, very close to us; and what we are hoping for is to find ways at the Federal level to get beyond opioids, to help people who are addicted have some stability, regain their health, be healed of their addiction.

But this cannot all be done at the Federal level, and we know that. In fact, too many people look first to the Federal Government for an answer. The Federal Government usually is the worst place to come for an answer. It usually has to be done at the local level, then at the State level, and, last, the Federal level.

But I know, as Representative Thompson has pointed out, many Members--in fact, I believe all Members of Congress now--are concerned about this problem we are facing with opioids, and we will answer the call to do something. My only hope is that we put everything into perspective.

As we have learned from our hearings and talking to other people, much of this work needs to be done in the family to start with, in the medical communities, and once people become addicted, then in the local communities as people collaborate, work together to help people not become addicted to opioids, and once they do get off of the addiction, to get back to a normal life.

I know that all of us pray for those who are addicted and pray that they will find a suitable program to help them become free from opioid addiction, and for those who have never become addicted, to be in a great environment so they never seek out drugs as an answer, because they are not an answer.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being here tonight, I thank the staff, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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