Nation's Opioid Epidemic

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Clark for organizing this really important discussion here this evening.

The scope of the problem in terms of what is facing our Nation is pretty astonishing when you look at the statistics from the Centers for Disease Control.

In 2004, 7,000 Americans lost their lives to heroin overdoses. Fast- forward 10 years and that number is now over 27,000. Again, the statistics land in suburban America, rural America, and urban America.

But at the end of the day, behind every one of those numbers is a story of a human being and a family. That is why this discussion is so important tonight.

Next to me I have a chart showing the face of Justice Kelly, who is a 21-year-old from Tolland, Connecticut. Tolland, Connecticut, is the quintessential small-town New England community. It is about 5 miles from where I live. Her mother, Jennifer, moved there hoping that this was going to be a great community to raise her child, and she went through the public school system.

Battling depression, she fell victim to heroin addiction and for the last number of years has been battling this with methadone treatment in and out of facilities and programs.

Last summer she really finally went to her family and just begged them to get access to a long-term rehab program. Unfortunately, the waiting lists were months. The facilities in Connecticut, like so many other parts of the country, were full.

In August of 2015, when she again was in a predicament where she lost her asthma medication, the combination of suffering from asthma and a heroin overdose resulted in her being rushed to the hospital with an overdose condition.

The good news is that the folks at the emergency room were able to save her life. But as her mother said, ``As we pulled into the parking lot of the ER, I knew at that moment I was losing her. All I remember from that moment on was being more scared than I have been in my entire life. I saw a whole team of people come outside and try and save my baby's life. I stood there helpless and alone. All I could do was look to God.''

She now is in a permanent vegetative state, as the photograph next to me indicates, and there really are no signs of improvement.

Her mother went on to say, ``They saved my daughter's life that day, but it's been a very hard journey. Justice's injury is so severe that the likelihood Justice will ever recover is very slim. More than likely, I will have to make the decision to bring my baby home with hospice.''

This story shows that this problem extends far beyond even the fatalities. It also is going to leave people with chronic life-changing conditions, like this beautiful young girl from Tolland, Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, this issue is now coming to the floor this week with a number of measures authorizing different changes and approaches to this program.

I want to, again, emphasize the fact that I come from the State with the highest per capita income, but even in Connecticut, people cannot find access to treatment beds. That is why at some point we have to bring this discussion to a higher level and realize that we need to get resources out to the communities so that law enforcement can at the front lines deal with this issue in emergency situations, so that we have treatment options for families like the Kelly family in Tolland, Connecticut, and so that we go upstream in terms of prevention and education so as to get to the root causes of the pathways to heroin and opioid addiction. This is going to require an all-hands-on-deck approach.

Yes, let's support the legislation that is coming forward this week, let's make smart policy changes, and let's authorize different programs. At the end of the day, we need to put our money where our mouth is in that we need to treat this like it is a natural disaster. As a Nation, we would instantly respond to a hurricane that is taking human lives at a clip much slower, in fact, than what is happening with the heroin opioid crisis.

Let's move forward with the $600 million request for emergency supplemental funding, which is before the Appropriations Committee, so that we will not just talk about solving this problem but, again, put the resources out there so that the police, the addiction counselors, the treatment folks, and all of the families who are out there who are desperate for help will know that our country is going to treat this as the true crisis that it is and will know we will get the resources all across the country.

Again, I thank Representativ Clark for organizing this discussion. Jennifer Kelly, Justice's mother, thanks the gentlewoman for letting us have an opportunity to tell the story about her daughter.

As a Nation, let's move forward with all of the resources and good ideas because that is the only way we are ever going to come to terms with this problem and solve it.

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