Udall Participates in Senate Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse

Sen. Tom Udall is participating today in a hearing on the sometimes devastating effects of prescription drug abuse – a major problem in New Mexico.

New Mexico has the highest rate of drug overdose fatalities in the country.

You can watch the hearing, which just began, here:  www.drugcaucus.senate.gov.

Here’s Udall’s opening statement.

Good Afternoon.  I want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for convening today’s hearing. This is such an important issue. One that is hitting my home state very hard.

New Mexico has the sad distinction of having the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country. It is tragic. And it is unacceptable. 

Our discussion today, regarding the prescription drug abuse crisis, and how Congress will respond to it, is a necessary step. 

The nation’s drug epidemic has moved from the streets to our medicine cabinets. From illicit drugs to prescription drugs. But, the outcome is the same. Destroyed lives. Unnecessary deaths. And it reaches every racial, geographical, and socio-economic group.

Since 2007, more New Mexicans have overdosed and died from prescription drugs —like oxycodone, morphine, and methadone—than from illicit drugs, like heroin and cocaine. In the last decade alone, we’ve seen the overdose rate from prescriptions increase by over 60 percent. 

Pills are easy to get hold of. Far too easy…Especially for young people. 

Local law enforcement has identified diverted prescription drugs, that fall into the wrong hands, as the most significant emerging drug threat statewide.

They’ve also learned that prescription drug abuse is a gateway to heroin use. 

New Mexico teenagers and young adults are taking prescriptions to get high. But pills are expensive. Once they’re addicted, they’re resorting to heroin for two reasons: it’s cheaper and easier to get. A lethal combination.  And, tragically they are dying from it.

This issue hits close to home for many of us. One of my own staff members, who was raised in Albuquerque, shared his story with me this week as we were preparing for this hearing. He’s seen the problem first-hand.

Over the past three months, four people he went to Cibola High School with, have died from heroin overdoses. Four deaths in three months. One was his best friend of twenty years, Michael. He was 30-years-old. All four turned to heroin, after abusing prescription drugs.

 Like many, Michael had sought treatment. With the support of his family, he completed a 90-day private rehabilitation program. He was trying to stay clean.   

On a recent New Mexico PBS program, one father shared a similar story about his young son’s heroin overdose. This father said “I looked for answers. Tried to figure out ways to help. What I kept hearing was you have to allow them to hit bottom…and some addicts die on the way to the bottom…even on the day he died he was on the phone looking for treatment centers that could help him.” 

So you can see, this is a great challenge we’re facing. In New Mexico, the State Pharmacy Board, physicians, epidemiologists–all are working hard to confront this growing problem. Working to increase public health and education efforts.  But, more must be done. We must continue to work aggressively to better understand how to prevent these unnecessary and tragic deaths.

This epidemic affects all of us, and for some of our witnesses here today, in a very personal manner. It is a crisis that demands our attention. I look forward to the testimony of our distinguished witnesses.  And thank you once again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today.