OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Keep Crushable Pills Off the Market

Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 18, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Drugs

Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, while the impending fiscal cliff is on our minds, I rise to alert my colleagues to another end-of-the-year deadline with potentially deadly consequences. If the FDA fails to act, on January 1 our streets could be flooded with cheap, crushable prescription painkillers ripe for abuse and misuse.

After OxyContin came on the market 15 years ago, a wave of overdose deaths devastated entire towns in my region of Appalachian Kentucky before spreading like wildfire to the big cities and suburban communities across the country. By crushing these 12-hour-delay pain pills, abusers can experience a euphoric, and sometimes deadly, high.

But today, the FDA has an opportunity to keep these crushable pills out of our children's reach. A number of prescription medicines already on the market use tamper-resistant technologies that can cut back on abuse. No generic pill should come to market without these live-saving features.

The FDA must take the necessary steps to keep us from careening off this pain-pill cliff.


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