Opioid Epidemic
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, over the last 16 months, no community has been spared from the devastation of COVID-19. The virus itself has claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans, including more than 50,000 Texans, and we are still gaining a fuller picture of the far- reaching consequences of this pandemic.
We know that the mitigation efforts led to the closure of countless small businesses and upended the livelihoods of millions of workers. The transition to virtual learning robbed children of valuable time alongside their peers in the classroom. And the emotional and financial stresses of the pandemic led to devastating consequences for our friends and neighbors who were already in a vulnerable situations.
As families spent more time isolating at home last year, we saw an increase in domestic violence. Individuals who were already experiencing anxiety and depression faced even greater challenges during this difficult period. And those battling substance-use disorders faced an even steeper uphill climb. On top of the stress and isolation of the pandemic, many lost access to treatment facilities and outreach programs.
No community has been spared from the wrath of the opioid epidemic. In 2019, there were more than 70,000 overdose deaths in America, a devastating number. Now we have a much clearer picture of how this crisis worsened in 2020.
Last year, more than 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. That is more than a 30-percent increase over the previous year. It marks the largest annual increase in at least three decades.
Following years of fighting to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic, this is a stunning blow and a deep disappointment. Here in the Senate, this issue is about as bipartisan as they come. As I said, every State, every community has been hit by the scourge of opioids, and every person in this Chamber, I believe, wants to turn the tide on this crisis.
In 2016, thanks to the leadership of our friend Senator Portman of Ohio, and the hard work of a bipartisan group of Senators, we passed what became known as CARA, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, to help end this devastating cycle of drug abuse and death. Just a couple of years ago, we celebrated some incremental progress. In 2018, drug overdoses were down, or deaths from drug overdoses were down 4 percent from the previous year, the first decrease in nearly three decades.
But, unfortunately, that trend was short-lived. Overdose deaths increased in 2019, and they skyrocketed in 2020. Now is the time for the Senate to take further action and help the American people fight back.
Tomorrow, the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control will hold a hearing on the Federal Government's response to the drug overdose crisis. We will hear from experts, including the acting directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, as well as Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. I hope we will learn more about what additional steps we can take to reverse this concerning trend, as well as what more needs to be done.
One of the most effective ways to avoid drug overdose deaths, though, is to prevent those drugs from ever reaching our communities in the first place.
And, of course, Customs and Border Protection plays a vital role in stopping illicit drugs from entering our country. And it has seen an alarming amount of drugs coming across our southern border, as I speak--one of the most concerning, of course, being fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.
Depending on your body weight, 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal; a kilogram, which is 2.2 pounds, could kill 500,000 people; 2.2 pounds of fentanyl, something you could put a couple of kilograms in a backpack and walk it over to the southwestern border.
In fiscal year 2021, so far, Customs and Border Protection has seized more than 8,500 pounds of fentanyl. For context, that is a 78-percent increase over the previous year, and we still have 3 months to go. The amount of fentanyl that we have interdicted in the past 9 months is just shy of the total weight from fiscal years 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. That is a dramatic increase.
And it has deadly consequences. Nearly three-quarters of fatal overdoses last year were attributed to opioids--some synthetic, like fentanyl; others like heroin--manufactured primarily in Mexico, 90 percent of which is imported in the United States comes from Mexico.
The alarming increase in the supply coming across our southwestern border foreshadows even more devastating overdose statistics in the months and years to come. And fentanyl isn't the only dangerous drug moving across our southern border. Methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin, as I said, are coming into our country at alarming rates.
If people don't care about the humanitarian crisis at the border that has seen a million encounters with Border Patrol the last year alone, if they don't care about the fact that we are not stopping illegal immigration into the country and what consequences that will have on our country for many years to come, hopefully they care a little bit about the drug overdose deaths that are caused by the importation-- illegal importation of these drugs across the southern border.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration's National Drug Threat Assessment, the vast majority of heroin, as I said, comes from Mexico--a staggering 92 percent, to be precise.
As we have discussed the border on the crisis, I have talked about the cascading consequences of this migration surge. When Border Patrol agents are pulled off the front lines to care for migrant children, as many of them are, it creates a huge gap in our border controls and creates huge security vulnerabilities. It, of course, makes it more difficult for the Border Patrol to do the job that they signed on for, which is to interdict dangerous people and substances, including these dangerous drugs.
So until we can get this current humanitarian crisis under control, we are making it nearly impossible for the Border Patrol to catch or deter the cartels from moving their poison across the border, and we are creating even more risk for Americans already struggling with addiction and drug abuse.
Getting the border under control should be a top priority for the Biden administration, but they seem completely oblivious to what is happening, and they don't really seem to understand the dynamics. We know the traditional push factors--poverty and violence in your home country--but it takes a lot for people to want to leave their home country and take the dangerous trek to the United States.
But, of course, they are having the coyotes, the human smugglers, whisper in their ears and say: For $5,000 or for $7,000, we will get you to America.
But it is also the pull factors. It is the perception that if you come to the border, that you will successfully make your way into the interior and you will be allowed to stay. Of course, that is not what our laws call for, but that is exactly what these smugglers, the coyotes, are planning on and what is attracting, like a huge magnet, hundreds of thousands, even a million people this year alone, across our southern border. And it is the same chaos and confusion caused by this flooding of the border and the diversion of law enforcement that is allowing these drugs to come across the border, which, as I said, have killed 93,000 Americans in the last year alone.
In addition to stopping these drugs from making their way into our country, we also need to identify more effective ways to break the cycle of addiction, and that is especially true for those individuals who have been incarcerated. It is difficult to know the exact numbers, but research shows that an estimated 65 percent of the U.S. prison population has an active substance use disorder. Without access to treatment while incarcerated, these men and women face a steep, maybe an impossible, uphill climb after they are released. In order to give an incarcerated individual the strongest possible opportunity after serving their time in our criminal justice system, we need to invest more in effective treatment options once they leave prison.
The good news is there is already a bipartisan bill out there that does exactly that. Earlier this year, Senator Whitehouse--the Senator from Rhode Island--and I introduced the Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Act to help incarcerated individuals break this cycle of addiction.
Now, we know we are not going to be able to save everybody, but for those who are willing to put in the hard work and effort and to seek the counseling and treatment that is necessary, we believe we can save some lives. This legislation updates the residential substance abuse treatment program and expands access to treatment in jails and prisons across the country. The program, as it currently exists, already provides incarcerated individuals with access to treatment for substance use disorders. That treatment is coupled with programs to prepare these men and women for reentry into civil society and provide community-based treatment once they are released.
Because of these men and women who have struggled hard while they have been in prison and in jail to overcome their addiction, many are returning to the same conditions and the same friends and the company and communities that they came from. Without this kind of help, we know what the results are likely to be.
Our legislation opens up even more opportunities for successful rehabilitation and continued recovery. It provides providers with more options to treat substance use disorders. It requires program staff to be trained in the science of addiction, evidence-based therapies and strategies for continuity of care, and it ensures programs are affiliated with providers who can continue treatment after incarceration. In short, these changes will give the formerly incarcerated men and women the best possible shot at living healthier, longer, and more productive lives.
I am sure it is no surprise that this kind of legislation has strong bipartisan support, both here in the Senate and among the various organizations that work in this field. Twenty-seven groups wrote a letter to Senator Whitehouse and me endorsing this legislation. This includes a broad range of criminal justice and behavioral groups, such as the Addiction Policy Forum, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.
I haven't heard from a single Senator, Republican or Democrat, who has expressed oppositions or even concern about the bill. This is an example of the bipartisan, commonsense actions that we need to be taking more often and, in this case, to address a very serious and clearly growing problem. These commonsense policy changes can help people struggling with drug abuse to finally escape the cycle and build a better life when they return to their communities.
I hope that the Senate will soon pass this bill and move it one step closer to President Biden's desk. The dramatic spike in drug overdose deaths last year should serve as a call to action for all of us. To secure our border, to help those struggling to overcome addiction, the tools and the training to do so, there is an urgent action that we can take and should take to address both.
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