Alert

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, delivered opening remarks and questioned a panel during a hearing examining prevention, treatment, and recovery activities related to the opioid crisis in America. Click here to watch Blunt's questioning from the hearing.

Following is an excerpt of Blunt’s opening remarks:

“[T]he opioid epidemic crisis is the worst drug epidemic that our nation has ever faced. Current death rates of all drug overdoses rival those of the peak of the AIDS crisis in the 1990’s... Over the last three years, Senator Murray and I have been the chair and the ranking member of this subcommittee. We’ve written bills that repeatedly increased the opioid funding, an increase of about $760 million dollars, which is a 1,300 percent increase from where we were just three years ago.”