Thank you very much. And thank you to Senator Markey for the work he's done and his passionate, passionate words, as well as his understanding of the crisis that this truly is. And I think one of the ways that I most explain it to my state is, every day you turn on the news, you hear about car crashes. You hear about when there's a murder. Well, in my state, the most we hear about is that deaths from prescription drug abuse now claims the lives of more Minnesotans than homicides or car crashes. It's a crisis on the rise.

According to our Department of Health in our state, drug overdose deaths among Minnesotans increased 11 percent from 2014--last year--to 2015. Last year, 336 people in our state died from overdoses. The Twin Cities have been hit hard by the deadly trend. In Hennepin County, drug related deaths increased 40 percent since 2006. But we know this is not a crisis confined to our urban areas. I see Senator Shaheen here from New Hampshire. This is something that has hit hard in her state in rural areas just like mine. In one 7,000 person town in Minnesota, three young people died in just six months. Another three were hospitalized for heroin overdoses.

And we know, by the way, that heroin overdose is no longer separate from prescription drugs. In fact, four out of five heroin users have now gotten their start on prescription drugs because they got addicted either because someone gave them--because they got it out of a medicine cabinet--because they went to the emergency room and were given 30 pills and got addicted. Or maybe they just went to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth fixed.

These are real stories happening all over the country. Montevideo, Minnesota, I was there. Smaller town with some doctors. One of them started to cry at this event, telling the story about how a guy had seen him for back pain over and over and over and the next thing he knew, the Secret Service was in his office telling him this person had gotten addicted, making threated over the Internet on the life of elected officials and ended up in prison. He had no idea. That same forum, I heard the story of a 12-year-old who was courted by a pusher. 12-year-olds, they came up to him and say, "Hey, could you check you check your parents' medicine cabinet?" Gave him a list of drugs, sent him off, and said, "If you come back with those bottles of pills, we'll give you a can of beer." That's what’s happening in small-town America.

So we have passed a bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. And I was proud of the bipartisan work. I was one of the four lead sponsors on this bill. And it builds on some of the work that we’ve done to set up a framework. Senator Cornyn and I passed one of the first bills in this area, which is the drug take-back bill that allowed drug take-backs in a way that we're now starting to see across the nation. We were already seeing them, of course, in police departments and public facilities. But this makes it easier for drugstore and pharmacies to take back drugs. Walgreens has announced they're going to be doing this on a national basis. And it also makes it easier for long-term care facilities. So those things are beginnings.

But for me, we can't end there. Not when on one recent National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day in April, over 445 tons of unused drugs were collected. That is on one day in this country. It gives you a sense of how many are out there. So in the CARA bill, we made it easier to do drug take-back. We also increase the availability of naloxone. Although, I will say as a sideline, Senator Markey, one problem with this is the price has gone up 1,000 percent of naloxone by the pharmaceutical company that provides it. So that's another issue we're going to have to deal with. That is, of course, for another day. But I will say that naloxone is something we know can save lives.

For me, the heart of this is trying to go after the fact that these prescription drugs, really at their start, try to stop people from being addicted. And I will get to the treatment part in a moment. But we need to stop the addiction from the first place. Just this month, one Minnesota newspaper told the story of a man in Duluth who got prescriptions from opioid pain killers from 23 dentists and 15 emergency room physicians in just over two years.

Back in May, in Moorehead, I heard the story of another man from a rehab counselor. This guy had filled 108 prescriptions for pain killers for more than 85 different prescribers in Minnesota and in neighboring states. And we see this especially—you’re my neighbor, Mr. Presiding Officer—in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin in search of different doctors that they can basically dupe into giving them, filling their prescriptions because they’re addicts.

That shouldn’t be happening. Doctors shouldn’t be giving these prescriptions out. And that’s why I’ve introduced a new bill that would require doctors and pharmacies to report when they give these prescriptions out immediately and require physicians to check this list. Many states have these program in place—prescription drug monitoring programs—but they are voluntary. Not everyone does them. Some states like Florida don’t even share their data with the rest of the country. And I truly believe that doctors and pharmacists are on the front line. And if they check these, we’re going to stop people from getting addicted and get them into treatment like we should.

Which leads me to the next piece, which is treatment itself. I’ve had many people tell me that they are better off committing a felony to get treatment. Why is that? Well, a lot of states like mine have good drug courts. And if you can get into the right program in a drug court, you’re going to get treatment and follow-up, and you’re going to get the help you need.

A lot of insurance policies aren’t covering it. There’s not treatment available. And that is why I support Senator Manchin and am an original cosponsor of the Lifeboat Act, which basically puts a one cent fee on each milligram on active opioid ingredient in a prescription pain pill. That is one good way to pay for treatment, as well as, of course, Senator Shaheen’s strong bill that appropriates emergency funding to address the drug abuse with treatment.

We have to remember that only one in ten people who suffer from opioid addiction actually receive the treatment that they need. My state’s a big believer in treatment. We use treatment a lot for low-level offenses. We use drug court a lot. It’s one of the reasons we have been able to keep our crime rate at a decent level compared to a lot of other states. That doesn’t mean that there’s not horrific crimes, but we have really focused on treatment.

In my own life, my dad is an alcoholic. He is sober now and happily married at age 88 and stopped drinking a while back. But he wouldn’t have done it without treatment. And that’s after three D.W.I.s and a lot of difficulties. But he got through it. And I believe from seeing that, seeing my dad climb the highest mountain but fall to the lowest valleys, that there is redemption, and there is hope.

But I don’t think that treatment should just be limited to the people that have good insurance or can afford it. We in this country have created this crisis. Let us be clear. Decisions were made at pharmaceutical companies and everywhere across the country to expand the use of opioids to tell people they can take 30 pills when maybe they need one or none or maybe two or three. Those are bad decisions, and they were made and people were duped, and they got addicted. And the least that we can do is give them the treatment so they can get off of it and then to make sure that their kids don’t get addicted as well. This is a serious epidemic, and it calls for serious action, as well as funding. Thank you.

you very much. And thank you to Senator Markey for the work he's done and his passionate, passionate words, as well as his understanding of the crisis that this truly is. And I think one of the ways that I most explain it to my state is, every day you turn on the news, you hear about car crashes. You hear about when there's a murder. Well, in my state, the most we hear about is that deaths from prescription drug abuse now claims the lives of more Minnesotans than homicides or car crashes. It's a crisis on the rise.

According to our Department of Health in our state, drug overdose deaths among Minnesotans increased 11 percent from 2014--last year--to 2015. Last year, 336 people in our state died from overdoses. The Twin Cities have been hit hard by the deadly trend. In Hennepin County, drug related deaths increased 40 percent since 2006. But we know this is not a crisis confined to our urban areas. I see Senator Shaheen here from New Hampshire. This is something that has hit hard in her state in rural areas just like mine. In one 7,000 person town in Minnesota, three young people died in just six months. Another three were hospitalized for heroin overdoses.

And we know, by the way, that heroin overdose is no longer separate from prescription drugs. In fact, four out of five heroin users have now gotten their start on prescription drugs because they got addicted either because someone gave them--because they got it out of a medicine cabinet--because they went to the emergency room and were given 30 pills and got addicted. Or maybe they just went to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth fixed.

These are real stories happening all over the country. Montevideo, Minnesota, I was there. Smaller town with some doctors. One of them started to cry at this event, telling the story about how a guy had seen him for back pain over and over and over and the next thing he knew, the Secret Service was in his office telling him this person had gotten addicted, making threated over the Internet on the life of elected officials and ended up in prison. He had no idea. That same forum, I heard the story of a 12-year-old who was courted by a pusher. 12-year-olds, they came up to him and say, "Hey, could you check you check your parents' medicine cabinet?" Gave him a list of drugs, sent him off, and said, "If you come back with those bottles of pills, we'll give you a can of beer." That's what’s happening in small-town America. 

So we have passed a bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. And I was proud of the bipartisan work. I was one of the four lead sponsors on this bill. And it builds on some of the work that we’ve done to set up a framework. Senator Cornyn and I passed one of the first bills in this area, which is the drug take-back bill that allowed drug take-backs in a way that we're now starting to see across the nation. We were already seeing them, of course, in police departments and public facilities. But this makes it easier for drugstore and pharmacies to take back drugs. Walgreens has announced they're going to be doing this on a national basis. And it also makes it easier for long-term care facilities. So those things are beginnings.

But for me, we can't end there. Not when on one recent National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day in April, over 445 tons of unused drugs were collected. That is on one day in this country. It gives you a sense of how many are out there. So in the CARA bill, we made it easier to do drug take-back. We also increase the availability of naloxone. Although, I will say as a sideline, Senator Markey, one problem with this is the price has gone up 1,000 percent of naloxone by the pharmaceutical company that provides it. So that's another issue we're going to have to deal with. That is, of course, for another day. But I will say that naloxone is something we know can save lives.

For me, the heart of this is trying to go after the fact that these prescription drugs, really at their start, try to stop people from being addicted. And I will get to the treatment part in a moment. But we need to stop the addiction from the first place. Just this month, one Minnesota newspaper told the story of a man in Duluth who got prescriptions from opioid pain killers from 23 dentists and 15 emergency room physicians in just over two years.

Back in May, in Moorehead, I heard the story of another man from a rehab counselor. This guy had filled 108 prescriptions for pain killers for more than 85 different prescribers in Minnesota and in neighboring states. And we see this especially—you’re my neighbor, Mr. Presiding Officer—in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin in search of different doctors that they can basically dupe into giving them, filling their prescriptions because they’re addicts.

That shouldn’t be happening. Doctors shouldn’t be giving these prescriptions out. And that’s why I’ve introduced a new bill that would require doctors and pharmacies to report when they give these prescriptions out immediately and require physicians to check this list. Many states have these program in place—prescription drug monitoring programs—but they are voluntary. Not everyone does them. Some states like Florida don’t even share their data with the rest of the country. And I truly believe that doctors and pharmacists are on the front line. And if they check these, we’re going to stop people from getting addicted and get them into treatment like we should.

Which leads me to the next piece, which is treatment itself. I’ve had many people tell me that they are better off committing a felony to get treatment. Why is that? Well, a lot of states like mine have good drug courts. And if you can get into the right program in a drug court, you’re going to get treatment and follow-up, and you’re going to get the help you need.

A lot of insurance policies aren’t covering it. There’s not treatment available. And that is why I support Senator Manchin and am an original cosponsor of the Lifeboat Act, which basically puts a one cent fee on each milligram on active opioid ingredient in a prescription pain pill. That is one good way to pay for treatment, as well as, of course, Senator Shaheen’s strong bill that appropriates emergency funding to address the drug abuse with treatment.

We have to remember that only one in ten people who suffer from opioid addiction actually receive the treatment that they need. My state’s a big believer in treatment. We use treatment a lot for low-level offenses. We use drug court a lot. It’s one of the reasons we have been able to keep our crime rate at a decent level compared to a lot of other states. That doesn’t mean that there’s not horrific crimes, but we have really focused on treatment.

In my own life, my dad is an alcoholic. He is sober now and happily married at age 88 and stopped drinking a while back. But he wouldn’t have done it without treatment. And that’s after three D.W.I.s and a lot of difficulties. But he got through it. And I believe from seeing that, seeing my dad climb the highest mountain but fall to the lowest valleys, that there is redemption, and there is hope.

But I don’t think that treatment should just be limited to the people that have good insurance or can afford it. We in this country have created this crisis. Let us be clear. Decisions were made at pharmaceutical companies and everywhere across the country to expand the use of opioids to tell people they can take 30 pills when maybe they need one or none or maybe two or three. Those are bad decisions, and they were made and people were duped, and they got addicted. And the least that we can do is give them the treatment so they can get off of it and then to make sure that their kids don’t get addicted as well. This is a serious epidemic, and it calls for serious action, as well as funding. Thank you.Thank you very much. And thank you to Senator Markey for the work he's done and his passionate, passionate words, as well as his understanding of the crisis that this truly is. And I think one of the ways that I most explain it to my state is, every day you turn on the news, you hear about car crashes. You hear about when there's a murder. Well, in my state, the most we hear about is that deaths from prescription drug abuse now claims the lives of more Minnesotans than homicides or car crashes. It's a crisis on the rise.

According to our Department of Health in our state, drug overdose deaths among Minnesotans increased 11 percent from 2014--last year--to 2015. Last year, 336 people in our state died from overdoses. The Twin Cities have been hit hard by the deadly trend. In Hennepin County, drug related deaths increased 40 percent since 2006. But we know this is not a crisis confined to our urban areas. I see Senator Shaheen here from New Hampshire. This is something that has hit hard in her state in rural areas just like mine. In one 7,000 person town in Minnesota, three young people died in just six months. Another three were hospitalized for heroin overdoses.

And we know, by the way, that heroin overdose is no longer separate from prescription drugs. In fact, four out of five heroin users have now gotten their start on prescription drugs because they got addicted either because someone gave them--because they got it out of a medicine cabinet--because they went to the emergency room and were given 30 pills and got addicted. Or maybe they just went to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth fixed.

These are real stories happening all over the country. Montevideo, Minnesota, I was there. Smaller town with some doctors. One of them started to cry at this event, telling the story about how a guy had seen him for back pain over and over and over and the next thing he knew, the Secret Service was in his office telling him this person had gotten addicted, making threated over the Internet on the life of elected officials and ended up in prison. He had no idea. That same forum, I heard the story of a 12-year-old who was courted by a pusher. 12-year-olds, they came up to him and say, "Hey, could you check you check your parents' medicine cabinet?" Gave him a list of drugs, sent him off, and said, "If you come back with those bottles of pills, we'll give you a can of beer." That's what’s happening in small-town America. 

So we have passed a bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. And I was proud of the bipartisan work. I was one of the four lead sponsors on this bill. And it builds on some of the work that we’ve done to set up a framework. Senator Cornyn and I passed one of the first bills in this area, which is the drug take-back bill that allowed drug take-backs in a way that we're now starting to see across the nation. We were already seeing them, of course, in police departments and public facilities. But this makes it easier for drugstore and pharmacies to take back drugs. Walgreens has announced they're going to be doing this on a national basis. And it also makes it easier for long-term care facilities. So those things are beginnings.

But for me, we can't end there. Not when on one recent National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day in April, over 445 tons of unused drugs were collected. That is on one day in this country. It gives you a sense of how many are out there. So in the CARA bill, we made it easier to do drug take-back. We also increase the availability of naloxone. Although, I will say as a sideline, Senator Markey, one problem with this is the price has gone up 1,000 percent of naloxone by the pharmaceutical company that provides it. So that's another issue we're going to have to deal with. That is, of course, for another day. But I will say that naloxone is something we know can save lives.

For me, the heart of this is trying to go after the fact that these prescription drugs, really at their start, try to stop people from being addicted. And I will get to the treatment part in a moment. But we need to stop the addiction from the first place. Just this month, one Minnesota newspaper told the story of a man in Duluth who got prescriptions from opioid pain killers from 23 dentists and 15 emergency room physicians in just over two years.

Back in May, in Moorehead, I heard the story of another man from a rehab counselor. This guy had filled 108 prescriptions for pain killers for more than 85 different prescribers in Minnesota and in neighboring states. And we see this especially—you’re my neighbor, Mr. Presiding Officer—in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin in search of different doctors that they can basically dupe into giving them, filling their prescriptions because they’re addicts.

That shouldn’t be happening. Doctors shouldn’t be giving these prescriptions out. And that’s why I’ve introduced a new bill that would require doctors and pharmacies to report when they give these prescriptions out immediately and require physicians to check this list. Many states have these program in place—prescription drug monitoring programs—but they are voluntary. Not everyone does them. Some states like Florida don’t even share their data with the rest of the country. And I truly believe that doctors and pharmacists are on the front line. And if they check these, we’re going to stop people from getting addicted and get them into treatment like we should.

Which leads me to the next piece, which is treatment itself. I’ve had many people tell me that they are better off committing a felony to get treatment. Why is that? Well, a lot of states like mine have good drug courts. And if you can get into the right program in a drug court, you’re going to get treatment and follow-up, and you’re going to get the help you need.

A lot of insurance policies aren’t covering it. There’s not treatment available. And that is why I support Senator Manchin and am an original cosponsor of the Lifeboat Act, which basically puts a one cent fee on each milligram on active opioid ingredient in a prescription pain pill. That is one good way to pay for treatment, as well as, of course, Senator Shaheen’s strong bill that appropriates emergency funding to address the drug abuse with treatment.

We have to remember that only one in ten people who suffer from opioid addiction actually receive the treatment that they need. My state’s a big believer in treatment. We use treatment a lot for low-level offenses. We use drug court a lot. It’s one of the reasons we have been able to keep our crime rate at a decent level compared to a lot of other states. That doesn’t mean that there’s not horrific crimes, but we have really focused on treatment.

In my own life, my dad is an alcoholic. He is sober now and happily married at age 88 and stopped drinking a while back. But he wouldn’t have done it without treatment. And that’s after three D.W.I.s and a lot of difficulties. But he got through it. And I believe from seeing that, seeing my dad climb the highest mountain but fall to the lowest valleys, that there is redemption, and there is hope.

But I don’t think that treatment should just be limited to the people that have good insurance or can afford it. We in this country have created this crisis. Let us be clear. Decisions were made at pharmaceutical companies and everywhere across the country to expand the use of opioids to tell people they can take 30 pills when maybe they need one or none or maybe two or three. Those are bad decisions, and they were made and people were duped, and they got addicted. And the least that we can do is give them the treatment so they can get off of it and then to make sure that their kids don’t get addicted as well. This is a serious epidemic, and it calls for serious action, as well as funding. Thank you.