OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Securing the International Mail Against Opioids Act of 2018

Floor Speech

Date: June 14, 2018
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security Drugs Criminal Justice

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5788, the STOP Act, sponsored by my good friend Mike Bishop.

This important piece of legislation would secure our mail system from fentanyl and other dangerous synthetic opioids that are flooding into the United States from foreign countries, namely China and Mexico.

The opioid crisis kills more than 100 Americans each day and caused more than 45,000 deaths last year alone. In 2016, more Americans died from a drug overdose than we lost in Vietnam. A third of those deaths are attributable to fentanyl.

Over the last few years, I have witnessed my kids losing their peers to this crisis, and it is terrifying.

Yesterday, I spoke to the mother of Nate Gordon, a young man from my district, who lost his life due to a fentanyl-laced overdose. Nate's mother and the rest of his family are heartbroken.

We have a responsibility to stem the tide of this crisis and prevent more families from suffering the tragic loss of one who is loved to opioid addiction. A vital component of this effort is plugging the holes in our mail system and stopping illicit substances from entering the United States.

So far this year, Customs and Border Patrol, working with the U.S. Postal Service, has seized more than 790 pounds of fentanyl. That is enough fentanyl to kill 179 million people. To put that in perspective, that is more than half our population.

My friend Mr. Harris talked about the size of a grain of rice. How about 1 gram, Mr. Speaker, a Sweet'n Low packet, something that we use every day? It is enough to kill 500 people.

The STOP Act is a great companion to the bill I recently introduced with my friend Tom Cotton that provides the U.S. Postal Service with more resources to screen international mail to stop these insane amounts of drugs coming into our country.

I thank my friend from Michigan for his thoughtful work to implement this much-needed policy change. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward