I've been reading and listening to books and podcasts about the opioid crisis, and it is heartbreaking that Congress has not done what it could do to reduce the amount of deaths from opioids. Over the past decade over 500,000 Americans are dead from opioid overdoses.
There are so many aspects to the crisis: how we got here, what are the causes, and how we get out of it are just some of the issues, but I want to focus on Congress, specifically Marsha Blackburn (now a senator from Tennessee) who was a congresswoman in 2014-2016 when she co-sponsored a bill that was ultimately passed.
Blackburn was warned by a DEA official about her bill. The law that Blackburn co-sponsored increased the burden for DEA to immediately suspend large shipments of drugs, requiring that it demonstrate a "substantial likelihood of an immediate threat that death, serious bodily harm, or abuse of a controlled substance will occur" without action. Congress pass the law, and President Obama signed it.
So what does this mean? This law means it became harder to stop large shipments of drugs, making it easier for bad players to continue to get drugs on the streets.
Blackburn's co-sponsoring of the bill was at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry, and it weakened the DEA efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacies who were pedaling narcotics to the black market.
Marsha Blackburn's contributions from the pharmaceutical industry were over $711,000 from 2002-2015. In 2016, after the the bill she co-sponsored was passed, contributions to her campaign increased dramatically. Just thought you'd like to know about this.
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