Senator Gillibrand is a typical leftist who thinks you can legislate a solution to every problem. I am tired of seeing this issue presented with straw man arguments and misleading facts. The only overdose death statistics that need to be used to weigh in on this case are those of deaths from prescription opioids, not all drugs and not all including illegally obtained opioids. So the true statistics shows .00005245 % of the American population died of prescription opioid overdose in 2016. How is this a crisis? Why are alarmists falling all over themselves to legislate so small a problem?
Here are the statistics separated as they should be. https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates
Legislation on opioids has already affected me and other chronic pain affected patients, by making it harder to get our medications and requiring us to jump through hoops and bureaucracy. I have incurable diabetic neuropathy, and I must take one Tramadol every five hours, and I must do this for the rest of my life. But idiotic legislators want to interfere with my access to this drug.
