c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. weeknights, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. june is pride month. and tonight we feature programs about lgbtq plus history, starting with santa clara university professor nancy unger discussing the role of gay bars. professor unger says by the end of the 19th century, bars and clubs catering to queer individuals could be found in most american cities, enabling socialization and venues to push for more social and legal acceptance. watch tonight and every weekend on c-span3. a good wednesday morning to you. you can go ahead and start calling in now. we'll get to your phone calls, but first the numbers on the

opioid crisis during the pandemic from a recent "new york times" story about it. more than 87,000 americans died of drug overdoses over the 12-month period that ended in september, according to preliminary federal data. that eclipses the toll from any year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s. the biggest jump in deaths took place in april and may when the strictest lockdown measures were in effect. that problem data released by the centers for disease control and prevention showed a 29% rise in overdose deaths from october 2019 through september 2020 compared with the previous 12 months. more from that story as we go on this morning. but to capitol hill. yesterday, from a "hill" newspaper story, congressman carolyn maloney, chairwoman of the house oversight and reform committee, pressed lawmakers to approve legislation to prevent the sackler family, the owners

of oxycontin maker purdue pharma, from paying fines. >> over the past two decades, nearly a half a million people in the united states have sdooid died as a result of the opioid epidemic. yet there's not a single thing that the sacklers would have done differently? it's shocking and appalling and it shows why we desperately need accountability for the sacklers' deadly, outrageous conduct. covid-19 has claimed 597,000 american lives. so the opioid epidemic is nearly as deadly as the worst pandemic in modern history.

and there's no vaccine for opioid addiction. since the committee's december hearing, even more information has come to light concerning the sacklers' deadly disregard for human life. much of this information has been brought forward by patrick radden keefe, whose recently published book, "empire th "empire of pain," provides a horrifying account of how the sacklers disregarded reports of oxycontin's misuse as the opioid crisis ignited, pushed perdue's executives to sell more and more and more of the dangerous prescription painkiller as the crisis raged, and heartlessly blaming those experiencing

addiction in order to protect oxycontin and its profits. >> congresswoman carolyn maloney yesterday at that house oversight and reform committee hearing. more from that hearing as we go this morning. you heard her mention that book, "empire of pain," by patrick radden keefe, who cass on c-span discussing his book and the opioid crisis, if you want to watch that you can do so on our website, c-span.org. this morning we're listening to your stories especially from the past year when it comes to the opioid crisis, in a year that saw historic surges in deaths when it comes to opioids in this country. our phone lines are split this way. if you've been impacted by opioids, 202-748-8000. medical professions, 202-748-8001. all others, 202-748-8002. mark is up first, on the line

for those impacted by the opioid crisis. good morning. mark, are you with us? you've got to stick by your phone, mark. we'll about it to scott in hutchinson, kansas. good morning, sir. >> good morning. i personally -- am i on? >> yes, sir. >> thank you for -- at c-span for all you do. i personally haven't, but family members have. and one individual that i felt real -- it wasn't right, he had an injury, and had got addicted. he tried to get off and didn't get medication. so in trying to, he ended up getting -- he had one pill in his possession and was hospitalized because he had a fit. and he got a felony for that. and the felony affected his

family's ability to earn an income in a good way, and that stuck with him. and it really had a ripple effect that was even more than just the addiction itself. also, in -- >> scott, can i ask how he did during the pandemic, during the lockdowns, during a time of social distancing? >> he's done better. i mean, he hasn't had the problem as much, because he's had children since then and has been more involved. but it was a real hard road for him. i would also like to just say that the fentanyl problem, high numbers. and what's really sad, you know, if a person hits bottom on alcohol, they can come up from it, realizing they need to make a change. but with this deadly fentanyl that's out there, these young

people can't, there's a lot of them that die from it. that's two types, one is a lot more potent than the other. >> scott, on that point, on the fentanyl, the synthetic opioids, the death surge that we saw especially during the pandemic led in large part because of synthetic opioid deaths. you can see this bottom line here on this chart from the commonwealth fund, the health equity group, looking at the start of the pandemic in march of 2020, and the surges in deaths. the bottom line is the surge in synthetic opioid deaths which helped lead to the increase in all opioid deaths, that middle green line, and the blue line, the total overdose deaths in this country ticking up, especially in those months immediately following the lockdowns in march and april, may, and into june. that chart, again, from the

commonwealth fund. robert in fayetteville, pennsylvania, good morning. >> hello. i'm a 59-year-old male, i guess you would say i'm retired. i hurt my back about 22 years ago, work-related injury, several work-related injuries. and i've been on opioids for over 20 years. and i think the numbers we're seeing here, these high numbers, i think a lot of them represent the people who are in genuine pain like i am on a daily basis. a lot of these people have been thrown off of their medicine by physicians that have been forced to cut back on the amount of prescriptions they write. and they might have been writing too many prescriptions, but i think they threw the baby out with the bath water here.

it's very hard to get a physician to write a prescription for an opioid right now. >> robert, what about having that conversation with the physician face-to-face, compared to the increase in telemedicine that we've seen during the coronavirus pandemic? have you gone through that experience? >> i don't know of any physician that will prescribe an opioid over the phone through telemedicine or through zoom or anything. i personally have to go see my physician once a month in-person, face-to-face, in order to get my prescription. and i have to travel about 35 miles out of the way from home just to be able to find a physician, towards our state capital. i think they're being forced by the powers that be to cut back on them regardless of how many people are in pain or not.

when you're in pain, if a doctor says you can't have any more medicine, i would venture to guess a great deal of the people that have been cut off have sought relief for their pain elsewhere. and those are the ones that are inexperienced with -- you know, with street drugs and such. and those people, i believe, will get tripped up with buying street drugs with fentanyl in it. >> robert, have you ever been tempted to do that in a time when the opioids are running low? >> yeah, sometimes -- well, it's hard to -- like i said, some days are worse than others. if you don't have enough pills to make your next prescription,

yeah, i could see people doing that. i have a regimen where i can take -- i can cut down, i take a pill, cut it in half, and then push it, instead of every six hours, go half of one every eight hours. that will -- if you're a day behind, that will help out a little bit there. >> robert, thanks for sharing your story, out of fayetteville, pennsylvania. to that line, dr. doshi, lexington, mississippi, dr. doshi, good morning to you. what are you seeing in your part of the country? >> i am a practitioner in miss mississippi. pain is a subjective thing, and they have made a picture of pain

as a vital sign, which is very subjective. if the patient has pain, they should be given medication. it's a complicated predicament. these drug companies, these doctors, they're designed that way, to help alleviate the pain. where do we draw a line between objective pain and subjective pain? and these opioids have been known to be addictive only for a period of time. >> what kind of medicine do you practice? >> i'm a primary care internist. >> how has this, what you're seeing in this area, how did it change during the coronavirus pandemic? >> what happened with coronavirus is very complicated, because the whole system shut down. health care people are shut down. people don't have an exit. and even if they have access, there is very strict monitoring of the patients who are drug

seekers or not. and selling and buying. and a lot of surrogates working in medicine, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, they all have become clinicians. these people have to be checked, long term events have to be thought upon. people are -- in the pandemic, the access has become difficult for the patients. because they are addicted, they need some way to get the system clean, which is a long term process. thank you. >> dr. doshi out of mississippi this morning. that line for medical professionals, 202-748-8001, if you want to share your stories, what you're seeing in your part of the country. if you've been impacted by opioids, 202-748-8000, and all others, 202-748-8002. we're talking about the opioid

surge during the coronavirus pandemic, of the hearing yesterday focusing on the sackler family and purdue pharma. during that hearing, one of the top republicans on that committee, the ranking member of the committee, focused as well on the border crisis and the trafficking of illicit drugs coming across the border, saying part of this continued surge we're seeing. this is congressman james comer, republican of kentucky. >> we have a growing number of illicit opioids streaming across our southern border. my republican colleagues and i have sent three letters to chairwoman maloney asking her to hold a hearing on the biden border crisis. we have not yet had one. the longer the chairwoman waits to hold a hearing on the border crisis, the more americans are dying due to the illicit fentanyl coming across the border. and the economic shutdowns during the covid pandemic have prevented opioid abuse disorder

patients from being able to access care. without access to care, patients are isolated and at a significantly higher risk of relapsing. this hearing misses the point. it is so focused on the sackler family that it forgets the ongoing epidemic affecting millions of americans each day. i urge the chairwoman to hold a hearing on the border crisis, to stop the illicit trafficking of fentanyl and to reopen our country so that patient access -- can access the care they need. >> that is congressman james comer yesterday during that hearing before the house oversight and reform committee. the sackler family and purdue pharma have testified before on capitol hill. it's certainly not the first hearing on their role in the opioid crisis. this from december of last year. members of the sackler family asked by chairwoman carolyn maloney of the oversight reform

committee if they would apologize for purdue pharma's role in the opioid crisis. this is kathy sackler, the former purdue pharma vice president. >> i have tried to figure out, is there anything that i could have done differently, knowing what i knew then, not what i know now. and i have to say, i can't -- there is nothing that i can find that i would have done differently based on what i believed and understood then and what i learned from management and the reports to the board and what i learned from my colleagues on the board. and it is extremely distressing. and -- >> mrs. sackler, will you apologize for the role that you played in the opioid crisis?

>> i echo much of what my cousin said. but i will say to the american people, i am deeply and profoundly sorry that oxycontin has played a role in any addiction and death. i believe i conducted myself legally and ethically, and i believe the full record will demonstrate that. i still feel absolutely terrible that a product created to help and has helped so many people has also been associated with death and addiction. >> all these hearings that we've been showing you are available if you want to watch them in their entirety at our website at c-span.org. but this morning we're spending our time hearing from you around the country about the opioid surge during the coronavirus pandemic, the opioid death surge, the numbers from the cdc out this spring showing death

rates at historic levels. and as "the new york times" notes in their recent story on it, unlike in the early years of the opioid epidemic when deaths were largely among white americans in rural and suburban areas, the current crisis is affecting black americans disproportionately. those numbers out in april from the cdc showing some 87,000 americans died of a drug overdose over the 12-month period that ended in september of last year. this is tina, huntington, pennsylvania, impacted by the opioid crisis. good morning. >> hi, good morning. please be patient with me because this subject is very touchy. i lost a son in 2012 to oxycontin. it was a mixture of perdue medication that he took and he passed away. my point that i would like to make is, our government is primarily just as responsible as

perdue is for that type of opioid overdose. i now am also a chronic pain patient who goes through the stigma of, hey, she's an addict because she has to take something. and we have congress people sitting up there looking at us like we're a bunch of addicts chasing a drug, which we are not. but they have these pill mills. i can remember after my third or fourth back surgery, walking into a clinic and being handed a pamphlet, $500 off your prescription. it was that prescription. but our government today needs to get out of the doctor's office. we are patients first. we're not -- if you put us all in a room and you give us all the drug tests, we're able to cope with our medication. i have flare-ups to the point

where i can't move. i'm only 52 years old. and there are times that i cannot move. if i -- i can't take motrin. i can't take aleve because of other issues. and now the government is giving me the god complex to pharmacists, if you walk into a pharmacy and you hand them a prescription and they look at you and they say, oh, you don't look like you need this, they deny you. it's people like me that congress needs to be listening to, not the billionaires that are putting the poison on the streets like the cartel. my god, all they have to do is watch "catch a smuggler." it's coming in from everywhere. it was just in minneapolis last year. the pills that looked identical to what is prescribed turned out to be nothing but fentanyl. >> tina -- >> i'm so thankful that you guys are touching this subject. thank you so much.

>> tina, thanks for sharing your story, i'm so very sorry for the loss of your son. that's tina in pennsylvania. she mentions pill mills. it was last month the house passed a bill to crack down on pill dumping and pill mills, pill dumping by drug companies and the distribution of massive amounts of pills in certain parts of the country. here is part of that debate featuring congresswoman debbie dingell of michigan. >> this bipartisan legislation would implement safeguards against pill dumping and other abusive practices to address the ongoing opioid epidemic which remains one of the most pressing public health risks facing our country. last year, over 88,000 americans lost their lives as a result of the opioid crisis, including 2,650 individuals in my home state of michigan. communities across the country are hurting. and new tools to address pill

dumping and other dodgy practices that have exasperated the opioid crisis are needed now more than ever. the block, report, and suspend suspicious shipments act will strengthen oversight and integrity of the opioid supply chain by requiring that drug manufacturers and distributors exercise due diligence when they receive a suspicious order for controlled substances. this includes blocking or declining to fill the suspicious order and providing dea additional data and background on the indicators of the order in question. this legislation's common sense protection will save lives in michigan and all around this country by making distributors and manufacturers active partners in curbing these abuses. >> michigan congresswoman debbie

dingell in her remarks there. you heard her talk about the surge in opioid deaths and the impacts in her district in the ann arbor and dearborn area. plenty of stories after the cdc numbers came out about the surges in specific parts of the country. here is the -- the area here around washington, d.c. from the "washington post" story that came out about it, the d.c. area saw one of the largest surges last year, fatal opioid overdoses increased 46% in the district according to city data. virginia recorded 2020 as its deadliest year ever for opioid-related fatalities with 47% -- with a 47% increase. maryland saw a 19% jump in fatal overdoses involving opioids according to that preliminary data and for our visual learners, the chart there from "the washington post" showing the increases from 2016 through that preliminary data that we've

been talking about into 2020 in the maryland, d.c., and virginia areas. this is john out of cleveland, ohio. you're up next. good morning. >> good morning. i've been in the pharmaceutical issue for nearly 40 years. the horse is out of the barn. i can blame the distributors, now fentanyl, even before that, it affected the inner city. congress looked the other way. when the white powder hit wall street, that's okay, look the other way. supply chain, in existence for years. shipments of pain killing medicine, look the other way. no other country other than new zealand and america allows pharmaceutical commercials on the tv. every day they bombard the commercials. and how many americans know the prescriptions, they can't even spell the name of the chemical

included in the medicine. advertising makes the money. blame the internet for fentanyl. and the pharmaceutical lobby. i left the industry. i went into teaching and volunteering, thank god. collectively, the supply chain, the postal service tried their best. i don't want to mention the company's name. i know the opioid companies, a couple of them, at the beginning, they all made the billions [ inaudible ]. i don't want to mention the big shots with the white powder. >> john, when and why did you leave your job in pharmaceuticals? >> because they wrote a paper on me years ago, in graduate school, for no reason, as a guinea pig. you can see my accent. so i went into science. i had a college degree.

i came here from graduate school and the clinic wrote a paper on me, i was the punch line. i'm a volunteer in the city of cleveland. i'm not against drugs. painkillers have been used, fda approved, congress looked the other way. the barcode system distribution, common sense tells you whether shipments are delivered in your house even before the pandemic. >> donald hickory, out of north carolina, good morning, you're next. go ahead, sir. >> yeah, i'm with you. good morning. >> good morning to you. >> can you hear me? >> yes, sir. >> in 2007, i got throat cancer. and they had to put a stomach

tube in me. three to four times a day, i was shooting liquid oxycodone and xanax in my stomach. well, after going through cancer, you're addicted to that, especially when it's a liquid and it's going straight to you. so after my cancer treatment, my body was like hurting, because back in 2007 they didn't have pills. in the radiation was horrible. it caused me -- my doctor was prescribing me 330 milligram oxycodones, 90 xanaxs, i was like 16 drugs. this went on for 12 years.

i had a heart attack. >> donald, how long with 300 pills last you? >> i was doing ten a day. so, you know, it was supposed to be 300 was 30 days. but you know, when you're addicted, it's exactly what people tell you on tv shows of how it breaks your body down when you don't take it. you feel like you're about to die. and you'll do anything to get another pill. >> donald, how are you doing these days? >> i'm not doing real well. i'm still affected by the chemo and radiation i got. it really tore my nervous system

up, and my thyroid, and depression and anxiety that i went for 12 years doing this, not even knowing what i was doing, driving on trips to virginia. and then i had a bunch of seizures because of the xanax, when they took me off of it, then i ended up getting bleeding on the brain and was in baptist hospital for ten days. >> donald -- >> of which five i was in a coma. >> do you still need opioids? >> no, i quit 'em last june the 12th. >> how were you able to do that? >> by myself. well, i did have my doctor help me. i told my family physician i wanted off of them because he

were ruining my life. and i couldn't think straight. i couldn't remember what i was doing. and, you know, just mass confusion when you're taking that much. and then you add the opioids in with the xanax and then they had me on venaflaxine for depression. and the xanax was for anxiety. >> don, i appreciate you are sharing your story, and your efforts over the years. thanks so much and good luck to you. lance in ft. lauderdale, florida, good morning, you're next. >> good morning, john, how are you doing today? >> i'm doing all right. >> i've been through the eye of the storm. i originally started on oxycodone when i became disabled. i have a genetic disease that's destroying my body. and so the doctor prescribed it. i started to take it.

about a year later, i looked in the county, the eye of the storm, where it all got started, i walked into my pharmacist and asked for my prescription and the pharmacist looks at me and tells me, we don't carry that. i said, i've been coming here for the last year, you carried it, i know when the drop is, every tuesday. what do you mean? he says, we don't have it. i said, what are you going to have it? he said, we don't know. you can't tell that to somebody who is dependent on opioids. i ended up in the er because i didn't want to go on the street and they would give me enough to get me through until i could shame people to give me the meds. i switched to morphine which i've been on for the last decade. it just amazes me there's all this stuff about oxycodone. there isn't craziness about morphine. to me, this whole thing kind of gets me angry. when all the things were

happening in broward county, i called the dda and said, what are you doing, shutting down the pharmacies, don't you understand what that's going to do to legitimate patients like me? and they said, well, people are dying. i said, that doesn't help me. and also, i see these commercials on tv where the guy says how he lost his son, and had no idea, no idea. have you ever seen a prescription for morphine or oxycodone? when you get it, there are three, four pages of printed material telling you, danger, caution, be careful, habit forming. this is agreed on the part of the doctors and on the pill mills. down here, they arrested people. >> don, you said you would shame people until they gave it you to. what do you mean by that? >> i would go to the er and they would go, what's the matter? i would go, i need oxycodone or morphine or i'm going to go into

withdrawal, and i have a heart condition, i could die. so they would admit me and give me a couple of days worth when they let me out the next day. and then i would call up the insurance companies and the dea and finally find somebody, one of the pharmacists that i was working with, to give me my dose. and once i switched to morphine, it went away completely. but the personal responsibility in this is a joke. the doctor i go to for my pain medicines, he asks me every time i go, i see him once a month, he asks me every time i go, tests my urine. the government says he should test every year. they test my morphine level, if i'm too high, they'll cut me off because they figure i'm abusing. in the 12 years i've been with him, i've never missed a test or scored badly. it just amazes me people get a

prescription for a drug and don't read the material that comes with it. there's a small book attached to it, telling you the dangers. we have the internet, you can find out. when i spoke to the dea, they said, don't you feel bad about these young people dying? i said, yes, i'm a parent, i would hate to hear that my son or my daughter died. but they knew what they were doing. i don't see how penalizing me for their stupidity is going to make things better. >> that's lance out of ft. lauderdale, florida this morning. it's just after 7:30 on the east coast. you can keep calling in as we talk about the opioid surge during the pandemic. phone lines for those who have been impacted by opioids, medical professionals, and all others. i just want to update you on a busy day on capitol hill yesterday, plenty of different storylines that we've been following, just a couple of headlines on it from this morning's papers. the infrastructure deal may now hinge on new talks with a

different bipartisan group. president biden ending negotiations with a group of republicans led by senator shelley moore capito yesterday over his infrastructure package as the two sides failed to strike a deal after weeks of talks. a key part of biden's domestic agenda enters a new uncertain phase as the president shifts his focus to a separate group of both democrats and republicans in hopes of reaching that deal. plenty more on that later today and in the days to come as we focus on that issue. but also from the senate side yesterday on foreign affairs, the senate approved a bipartisan $250 billion bill boosting government spending on technology, research, and development amid rising competition from china and other nations. "the wall street journal" noting the passage won profile just before the senate's memorial day recess. the legislation represents, they write, an effort to turn the

tide on long term trends in u.s. competitiveness, they include eroding innovation and a shrinking share of semiconductor manufacturing. the front page of today's "washington times," cyber villains attacking a web tool that members of the house use to communicate with their voters, hit with a ransomware attack. the house's chief administrative officer said it's unaware that the cyberattack had affected the data there but plenty of offices were affected. we'll be talking more about cyber attacks and specifically ransomware attacks a little later in our program. today we'll be joined by jamil jaffer, former senior council on the house intelligence committee, senior vice president at the cybersecurity group iron net security. c-span viewers, "washington journal" viewers, have seen him before on this program. he'll be joining us in our

9:00 -- 8:45 eastern, actually, is when he'll be joining. back to your phone calls. john, columbus, ohio. we're talking about the opioid epidemic and its surge during the coronavirus pandemic. >> good morning. i could talk forever on this subject. i was over 30 years active drug addict, cocaine, crack, free base, whatever you want to call it, from the early '80s. you know, anybody with a basic knowledge of opioids, it's a physically addictive drug. you can only take it so long before you become addicted to it. it's not a choice you have to abuse it. the body has to have it. you know, we're all focused on this now, the fentanyl. i've never seen anybody mention that they're bootlegging xanax

now, the long ones, they're cutting it with fentanyl. people are dying from that also. but, you know, it's just like back in the '60s, we had the heroin epidemic, the lsd. even before that, in the '20s, the women were supposedly -- it's sexist, but, you know, the costs, it was an opioid. this has been going on for so long. the war on drugs. it seems like they've forgotten everybody else, the sufferers out there like myself before i recovered. 13 treatments. do you know the odds of success after treatment? >> what are they, john? >> very, very small. it used to be -- back when i was in the programs, it was 2%. i just looked it up, and they said it's similar, the one that i looked at said it's similar to hypertension. they compared it to hypertension

and diabetes. and before it's treated, i think from zero to nine, it was on nine. on the other side, addiction, the same way, nine. and then when they started treatment, of course it went down because they were clean. and then when they got out, it shot back up to about seven, seven or eight. it's so low, you know. but i kept going back and back and back, you know? that's what it took for me. >> what finally helped you beat it? >> well, 13 treatments. and, you know, finally i was ready, i guess. i don't know. they say it happens when you're ready. >> that's john in columbus, ohio. this is jay in penrose, north carolina. good morning. jay, are you with us? and we'll go to marie,

greenville, mississippi. good morning. >> good morning, john. i wanted to make some statements. i've never myself personally been affected by opioids. so i'm going to talk really fast because i don't want you to think i'm getting all track, but it all has to do with your subject. one of the things i always wondered when donald trump made the lady over at the education department, i always wondered when they said she donated $200 million to his campaign. and i said, i've never even heard of this lady before, her family. where did these people get $200 million? and i think you were the one that interviewed, if i'm not mistaken, her brother. and he was kind of like this general over this black op regiment that had been in afghanistan for the last 17 years. it hit me like a meteorite -- >> maria, i don't remember that interview, you might have me

confused. but bring me to the opioid epidemic during the coronavirus pandemic. that's what we're talking about this morning. >> yes, okay. i'm coming to that. and so that's why i felt like it was blood money that trump took. >> let's go to the opioids. >> okay. i feel sorry for those people that -- i mean, i made the statement at the beginning that i had never been affected by it. but that's why donald trump lost the election, the last night of the debate, when he kept mocking joe biden's son about being a drug addict and drug addict, he never considered all of these people that had struggled with drugs. he never considered the fact of all the people that's dealing with opioids, he kept mocking joe, when joe biden looked into the camera and told america, yes, my son struggled with drugs, he struggled but he got himself together. and i told my mother at that point, i looked at her, i said, donald trump just lost this

election. because he, joe biden, just connected with over millions and millions of people who are struggling with this drug and donald trump never did anything to help them try to get over this opioid, because he had taken the blood money for his campaign from betsy devos and her family. >> in the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, more from that "new york times" story this morning, the one that came out after that cdc data that showed the surge in drug overdose deaths in this country from october of 2019 to september of 2020, those are the latest numbers that the cdc has released. they write, the surging death rate eclipses modest gains made during president trump's term against the nation's entrenched addiction epidemic. during his administration several million dollars in

grants to states allowed more drug users to get access to three medicaid-approved medications, methadone, buprenephrine, naloxone, the overdose reversing drug that's saved thousands of lives, became much more widely distributed. again, that "new york times" story on the surge during the pandemic. this is craig in prescott valley, arizona, impacted by opioids. good morning. >> hey. i was calling in with a similar story from the gentleman from florida. i was a letter carrier for over 30 years. and my back got totally destroyed. and i've had -- tried everything, surgeries, shots, ablations, and all it's had is

made it worse. so the doctor prescribes me opioids. now with all these unfortunate deaths, now they've made it very difficult for me to get opioids. and it just seems like the people that are in severe pain that depend on opioids are being pushed aside because they haven't given us any other alternative. they're just starting to pull these drugs off the market, making it hard on pharmacies and doctors and patients like me that depend on that, they make us feel like we're drug addicts because we need pain medications just to make it through the day. and the pharmacies don't want to give it out. and then i have to jump from one pharmacy to another pharmacy because the doctor has to then transfer the prescription to

another pharmacy. and there isn't any alternative. and that's the -- and i think like the gentleman, one of them were talking about, how they would -- drug dealers would lace heroin with even rat poison, and people were dying. this was back in the '70s. so i think what they did was they started having us go to doctors, so doctors could prescribe pain medication. so that way they could control it. now -- >> craig, on the issue that you bring up of the lack of alternatives, it was a topic that came up during a hearing last month, a senate appropriations hearing on the hhs budget. it was senator brian schatz of hawaii who was talking with francis collins, the nih director. he was asked about the availability of alternatives to

opioids when it comes to pain management. here's a little bit of that discussion. >> finally, about chronic pain and nonopioid alternatives, i passed a couple of laws in this area to enable research, and i think when people think about alternatives to opioids, they move right in their mind, they move into alternative medicine. and what i'm talking about is a nonopioid pharmaceutical solution to chronic pain. and i'm wondering whether we're making progress in that space, because certainly if people find other ways to alleviate their pain, physical therapy, yoga, whatever, mindfulness, i'm for all of it, but there is still a space here for a pill that you can take to alleviate chronic pain without getting you hooked on an opioid. and where are we with this? >> that's a critical issue. and this congress has supported nih in something we call the heal initiative which hands for

helping end addiction long term. part of that is how to better treat people with opioids but a bigger part is coming up with alternatives to chronic pain management that are not addictive, that are not opioids. we've partnered with basically identify promising therapeutics that attack different targets in the pain mechanism that might therefore be beneficial. such things as sodium channel called nav 1.7 that's involved in the pain transmission. but if you block that, it should not give you any risk of addiction. we have something called epic net which is bringing on board promising compounds, getting them into phase two trials as part of the heal initiative. >> back to your phone calls this morning. we're talking about the surge in the opioid overdoses in this country during the coronavirus pandemic. bruce has been waiting in baltimore, maryland. good morning, you're next. >> good morning. first off i want to tackle some

misconceptions. i understand if somebody has back injuries or other problems. and i had back injuries before, not serious. and if you will prescribe something to deal with that, that's fine. but the misconception is i'm in baltimore city, the crime is unbelievable. the homicides. and of course we've got so-called leaders, mayor, city council, city council president. and the state's attorney, they don't want to deal with this. you know what? the problem is the people that are doing fentanyl, codeine, different type of opiates for recreational use. and then of course that fuels the open-air drug markets to drug dealers and the gang bangers and the reason why there is a tremendous amount of violence. it's just unbelievable. and, yet, none of the leftists, none of the democrats want to

hear it. and the republicans are pushing this. this is a problem. and percocet, that's no problem. and of course mosey wants to make all drugs legal. like what is going on? >> that's bruce in baltimore, maryland. this morning. a few comments from our text messaging service. and you of course can join in with that. 202-748-8003. if you prefer to communicate that way rather than calling in. phil in ohio writes, being a retired firefighter when we would go on a squad run and administer narcan that life-saving anti-opioid solution, most people, upon revival, would complain to us that we messed up their high. it is what phil writes this for mike in buffalo, the opioid crisis is out of control, i recommend everybody watch the hbo documentary "the crime of the century." lives lost, communities left in

tatters. the people who caused the crisis should be in jail and not just paying fines. and this from steve in fort pearce, florida. when the lack of personal responsibility is denied and the false assumption of victimhood is used to excuse destructive behavior, there will be no cultural change in drug abuse. demand is creating supply, not the other way around. just a few comments from text messaging. you can also join in on social media. @cspanwj. one more chart for you on the rise in opioid deaths amid the coronavirus pandemic. this from the commonwealth fund, again, that health equity group commonwealth fund.org, their report using cdc data but showing the overdose deaths increasing by state, and the darker the state color on this map, the larger the increase, a

60 plus percent increase in opioid deaths in states that are in black on this map, dark blue states a 49%, 59% increase during the first eight months of 2020. that compares those first eight months of 2020 to the first eight months of 2019. that chart again from the commonwealth fund. this is dan jackson heights, new york. that line for medical professionals, good morning, sir. >> yes. i'd like to point out a few things. first of all, that the opioid proves to be a problem because the companies put forward these synthetic opioids and insisted they are not addictive. second of all, a lot of the other drugs that we've had cox 1, cox 2 inhibitors, for example, which work very well on pain and inflammation, prove to be very deleterious to other

things. the thing about opioid is they're so related to crimes and people malfunctioning that we really should separate the issue of pain from the issue of addiction because a lot of people get addicted on these drugs not to stop pain but just, as pointed out, to get high. so, i just wonder since we really don't know how these things work in any one individual, what are we going to do? are we going to set a strict law so that a patient who is in severe pain, we can't treat him anymore because we've ran out of the available drugs or we're afraid of the patient becoming addicted? >> so what do you think we should do, dan? >> well, i think we should spend a lot more money understanding what we're dealing with in the nervous system.

and basic research is so minimal, while drug research is all for profit. and they're misleading in the management of all these major problems, cancer, pain, a lot of other things like that. and, as a result, desperate protocols are set up, and we go by these protocols whether they're right or not. and this is the sickening thing. the other thing i would say is that people who are hooked for one reason or another on opioids should not be treated as criminals. it's okay if they commit a crime that you put them through the court system. but if they're addicted they should not be treated as criminals. >> dan, what kind of doctor are you in jackson heights, new york? >> neurosurgeon. >> thanks for the call from new york. this is ronnie down in alabama, decatur, alabama, good morning. >> good morning. and what i wanted to speak about, we have a program here at

project rescue in bryceville, alabama. and the biggest problem we have is with the stimulus check. we have a man here, he's withdrawing of the opiates, his head's cleared up but he's still struggling because it's hard in addiction recovery. and then they take away his job and send him money, the worst thing you could do for a recovering drug addict is giving him money is like throwing gasoline on a fire. so, we've had a lot of trouble with that where they leave the program and relapse and have to start all over. >> ronnie, tell me about project rescue and your involvement in it. >> well, we've been here in priceville for ten years. like i said, we're bible-based. we believe the bible's the solution, but we believe in the neuroscience, too, and that agrees with the bible solution with each other. we're a one-year program, but they have to want to do it on their own. we can't just lock them down and

make them do it. so quickly we try to get them out to work and put them through the test while they're in the program. if a man stays a year, we have about an 85% success rate. if he stays six months, it goes down to about 65%. >> ronnie, how were you able to do that work during the covid pandemic? how did it change for you? >> oh, boy. in a way it was good, although it was terrible with the pandemic because everything shut down. but we did not shut down at all. we didn't stop taking anybody. and if we got a call, we just set up our dorm as a quarantine. and i just had classes. that's when i started studying and teaching on the neuroscience of addiction and tieing it in with the bible calling it neurospirituality because i

became a christian in prison after 15 years of addiction. and because i became a christian in prison, i overcame the addiction and never went back since i was released in 1989. that's how i got into the work. >> ronnie, how long has project rescue been around? and are you a staff member there? >> i'm the director of the program. myself and my wife started the program in georgia. we were there -- we started in 2007, and we came to alabama in 2011. we have a lot more help here with the church. and we've been going strong. we stayed filled up especially after the pandemic. we've been staying up to about 20 to 23 members. >> ronnie, thanks for the call from decatur, alabama. this is jeffrey in tennessee next. good morning. >> good morning. what i wanted to say is i've