coming up, washington journal's author series continues with ken stern. you there of republican like me. how i left the liberal bubble and learned love the right. >> good morning it's tuesday december 26th, 2017. three hour washington journal is ahead this morning an and we'll talk to public radio ceo ken stern about his book republican like me. we'll also spend time today talking about the 2018 election taking an early look at the key house and senate battle grounds but we begin looking back on 2017 and specifically how the country faced the on-going opioid crisis. you think the u.s. has turn and corner in bating the energy democracy nick 2017 and what's the best way forward for policy

makers in curbing heroin and opioid addiction. you can call in. your numbers are on the screen. 202-737-0002 for mountain and pacific zones and special line for those impacted by opioids also 202-628-0205 is that number. you can catch up was on twitter and facebook it's facebook.com/c-span. host: very good tuesday morning and we'll spend the first hour of our program talking about this topic and as you are calling in i want to show you a clip from the senate floor last thursday, indiana senator joe donnelley called more resources in combating the opioid christ is in awake of new centers for disease report found some 63,000

americans had died of a drug overdose in 2016. >> this is the time of year many americans reflect on the year that has passed and identify the priority in the years to come. in congress we need to do the same. more than 63,000 americans died last year. from opioid abuse. 63,000 moms and dads, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, sons and daughters who are not here with us this year. we must make this issue a priority. i hope congress will demonstrate that fighting opioid epidemic is a priority. one way to do that is include meaningful resources to fund key programs. when we deal with this again before january 19th of next

year. i am imploring my colleagues to make this a priority and to provide robust and meaningful funding our communities need to meaningfully and seriously address this problem. we're in the midst of a crisis. we must do more in 2018. we have families all across our nation with broken heart tonight for the ones they love and the ones they miss. let's make sure there's no more in 2018 that this ends today. host: that was senator joe donnelley on the floor of the senate last week. we want to hear whether you think there was progress in fighting the opioid crisis. the numbers from center of disease control are from 2016. some 63,000 americans died of a

drug overdose. this chart from the "washington post" looks specifically at opioid deaths in 2016. it was 42000. more than 42000 americans specifically of some sort of opioid overdose a 28 percent increase over 2015. another chart from the "washington post" from the same log looks at the various kinds of opioids and the surge in the deaths in and from the various kinds and the number of people fatally overdosing on agagfenta here. we'll show you more charts but try to put a face on this on-going crisis and one of the faces was profiled by the state journal register out of

springfield illinois the story from the state journal talking about cory small a springfield resident that nearly died 13 times during his seven years of using heroin and lost his best friend in 2017 and his long time girlfriend earlier this year and said he'll probably see opioids kill more acquaintances but he believes he will live. he wants to find love again and have children some day. the 37-year-old springfield resident has hope even if mixed worry that he won't return to heroin and survive the nation-wide opioid crisis. some experts say hasn't been since the aids crisis he became addicted to heroin after getting hooks on painkillers and he's been saved from overdose by n c norc

norcan. the local and state level are addressing this through life saving efforts and prevention rather than a war on drug style focus but officials say many challenges lie ahead including a lack of funding. that in the springfield if you want to read more about he and his story. we want to hear your stories this morning. have lines split up by time zone if you're in eastern central time zones. if you're in mountain pacific it's 202-737-0002 and special line for those impacts by opioid crisis is 202-628-0205. jacob calling in from west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. yeah. i was impacted and west virginia

but essentially the whole state, the major problem now is just to give everybody background. west virginia university the mountaineers. the name of our stadium? big pharmaceutical company run by our senator's daughter and oxycontin has been cut back big time which is what got us going and now we're getting heroin overdoses because people are turning to the street because our attorney general has done good job of turning back on oxycontin but now heroin honestly from detroit and michigan and just we had to call the national guard into huntington to try and stop it.

so, it seems like there's no end in sight and no help. we could really use help down here is all i can say about it. nothing seems to be on the up and up at all. host: when you said the attorney general did a good job cutting back on the oxycontin and prescriptions? how did he do that? lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies? caller: you can't get it here. it's very hard to do. you have to really be injured and prove it which does hurt people that's really injured but at the same time so many people have been hooked on it that it's just turned everybody to heroin that's turned to crime and it's devastated our state. we're the only state in the union losing population every single year. so it's a sad state. i love it. it's my home but what can you do.

host: jacob thanks for call. here's numbers focused on the state level. west virginia had some 52 drug over dose deaths in 2016 per 100,000 people. that places it first in the united states. ohio is second with 39.1 drug overdose deaths in 2017 per 100,000 people. ohio 39 and pennsylvania 37.9. the states with the lowest drug overdose death rates. iowa in 2016 with 10.6 over dose per 100,000 people. north dakota 10.6 and texas 10.1 and south dakota 8 point 4 and nebraska with 6.4 per 100,000 people, deaths, those are the numbers from center of disease

drug over dose report. we're talking about the opioid crisis in the first hour of this washington journal and asking you what progress you've seen. kevin in salt lake city this morning. caller: yeah. i wanted to say that you know, i believe that doctors knew these drugs were addictive before they started prescribing them. it's hard for me to believe that you have synthetic opium in heroin and you are a doctor with all that training and you don't believe it's addictive? host: i think we lost kevin. james is in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. for those impacted by the opioid crisis. james, go ahead. caller: are you there? host: yes, sir. caller: i was running for mayor

of pittsburgh. you are talking about it's like the alcohol thing. prohibition that was 13 years. i used to do heroin and smoked crack and did pills and i will never ever touch it again. i've been in prison and rehabs and detoxes and you name it i've been there and you couldn't pay me to touch it. look. i chose to do drugs. i chose to do it. people are not being forced to do these drugs they choose to do heroin and pills. just like that was the most ridiculous thing is 13 years of stupid for prohibition it it was dumbest thing we did and so is this. host: would you say you were addicted. caller: yes. host: how did you beat it? what helped you? caller: a lot of stuff.

in and out of jail. i got sick of going in and out of jail and sick of all the losing all my money and all my jobs and everything. my whole life was a wreck and i got sick of it and said that's enough, enough, enough. and i just - i locked myself in a hotel room and i was sick for like four taste and it's rough. when you start putting that stuff in your body it makes you feel real good. it gives you all this energy and then once you start taking it you get real sick and it's like wow you have to keep taking pills to get back your energy. you get real energized and you are like a rock star and once you don't have that dope or pills you're sick and you don't want to get out of bed and then you next thing you know, when it

goes in your system but when it comes out, oh my god. host: if you won that election you were running for or been allowed to continue to run what change would you make in pittsburgh? caller: what i would have did in pittsburgh. a lot of infrastructure in school systems. i was going, i was going to run and shoot over to the governor thing and coming up this year and run for lieutenant governor but they kicked me off the ballot because of my financial statement. so i'm independent so i had to get a bunch of signatures and then they take all this graduation. welcome to the ballot and debate and they sent me papers in the mail. host: will you run again some time? caller: yes, sir. coming up in 2018 lewis and wager in and i'm trying to get

involved. that's what i want to do. i have ideas i want to do and if you ask the question i'll give to it you. i'm talking a little fast but i have my ideas. host: appreciate you sharing your story. good luck in the next election. in lancaster, ohio. the state with the second most opioid related or drug overdose deaths in 2016 according to the lateest report. caller: yes we are. i want to say this. my mother worked at a hospital with heroin addicts for 23 years and i worked at a different place for the ten years and i think narcan is not a good idea. they have these lazarus parties so people can continue to shoot up their heroin.

it's one of the things you can shoot up the heroin and then it brings you right back to life but you can go right back to it. you have to go to the hospital after that and i think enough is enough. people need to take responsibility for themselves and if they choose to do drugs they can do drugs and i'm telling you this, they're going to find out in a couple of years they're going to have more overdoses than what they have now. host: you think first responders and hospitals should be allowed to have it and use it or nobody should have it? caller: i can understand hospitals and paramedics when they come out you know, i mean but that's not what's happening now. they're giving it out like it's m&ms at halloween time and they're designating a person to give this to the people injecting the heroin and then

they're overdosing and they squirt it up their nose to revive them and enough is enough and if you choose to do drugs and over dose then you'll have to do that then i guess, but no i'm not saying that it's wrong for a hospital. host: thanks for call this morning. few comments on our facebook page the question we're asking is if you've seen progress in 2017 with the opioid process. poly says nothing invested in recovery. jeff sessions wants to throw addicts in jail and trump wants to invest in a just say no media event and sounds like 80's crack epidemic to me and then this one says how about free trade with canada and big pharma runs

america and people are just too dumb from aaron. go after the big opioid pushers instead of giving them huge tax breaks. we're following your comments on facebook and you can join us and give us a call. our phone lines are split up regionally. eastern and central is 202-7370001 and that line for those impacted by opioids 202-628-0205. i want to hear your stories. griffin up next in in florida, good morning. caller: how are you? host: doing well. i was calling to say that i still don't see any progress and

i think that's what we shouldn't do. host: you think the trump administration is taking this issue more serious than previous administrations? how do you think the president has handled this? caller: it's tough to tell. i think that from what i've heard him say on the campaign trail and some of the features in who he hired as his attorney general it seems obvious he wants to take a tough assistance on drugs and i would agree but as far as things they've a actually done i'm not sure but this opioid crisis seems lower priority in iran and north korea and all the cyber wars and

theary can. there's less than 50,000 people that over dosed last year. our population is 350 million. host: president of the united states declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency. here's the president talking about the extent of the crisis at that event. >> last year almost one million americans used heroin and more than 11 million abused prescription opioids. the united states is by far the largest consumer of these drugs using more opioid pills per person than any other country in

the world. opioid deaths have quadrupled since 1999 and a count for the majority of fatal drug overdoses who would have thought. no part of our society not young or old rich more poor. your ban or rural has been spared this plague. drug addiction and this horrible situation that's taking place with opioids. in west virginia a truly great state, great people there's a hospital nursery. in agony. because these precious babies were exposed to drugs in the womb. they endured pain and sleeplessness the same as adults

undergoing detox. some of these children will likely lose one or both. such beautiful terrible measure of the opioid crisis including families ripped apart from many communities. this a national health emergency. what we've seen. nobody has seen anything like what's going on now as americans we cannot allow this to continue. it's time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.

never been this way. we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. we can do it. host: and if you missed that event you can go back and watch it all of our events can be seen at c-span.org but in the wake of the president declaring that national health emergency. another bit of reaction last week from democrat from rhode island said the presidential emergency fine to do but called the words to be backed up with funding. here as twitter video he sent out? >> i remember visiting borrowville a small town in northern iowa of a few thousand people and after the first three months of the year they had six over dose fatalities.

six overdose fatalities in a small town like that is a terrible emotional burden. it was with towns like this in rhode island and families that lost loved ones and mine that i wrote with senator port man the recovery act and got it passed into law. now that bill is in law, we need to fund it and that's the predicament that congress faces. we have to get money to the opioid epidemic. treatment we need to get on this problem. it didn't free up funding. when we do the funding it's imperative that we get adequate funding into that measure.

please support getting that done. host: your taking your calls on this topic until 8:00. it's coming up on that we have phone lines for each region. and the last line those impacted by opioids. go ahead. caller: how you doing? host: i'm doing well. caller: i served in iran and i'm retired but at the time i was 20 years old and i stop in 1992 i was on that drug for 22 but i want to say it started snorted heroin it was a recreational drug and then i eventually become addicted and then i graduated from snorting to skin topic to injection.

i got the scar right now on my arm but i've been off drugs for 25 year but the thing is that you got to remember they used heroin to substitute morphine and then came up with methadone and then you became addicted to methadone. i got locked up in 92 and you got tired of seeing my mom and everyone behind me and got tired and prayed and said lord you take this away from me. you know what i think? when you incarcerated and that body starts aching you're going to want relief. like a person with toothache or headache they want to take something to get that pain off and that's what her win does to your body. they start off recreational like they had no oxycontin but you

get used to that high. host: i think you've called in before on this same topic am i right about that. caller: i did. i did. host: you think that we turn and corner in 2017 on this? have we changed as a country and how we think about this or trying to combat it? caller: no, no, no. because you know they don't even understand what the withdrawal system is helping the people. know what you have to do? there's a drug a long time ago to keep people calm. once you incarcerate the drug patient for two weeks and then they're given that therapy it makes him sleep and he won't feel those physical withdraws and then you can start talking to him then. you understand me? then you can talk to them because he ain't feeling the

physical withdrawal and then you communicate with him and showing him a different side hey man, you know you don't have to live like this and this and that. that will help him more than anything in the world man. let me tell you something john your body start cramping and when that body start acting so bad you just want some relief so bad, your body just from your toes to your head it goes through it's a feeling you don't want to have, man. and the only thing you can think about is man i can get me another score. host: i got your point. thanks for continuing to call in on this topic. howard in pittsburgh. go ahead. caller: hello? you know i had open heart surgery and almost died for pnemonia and i never had any pain whatsoever and i guess

that's a good thing because my understanding is that a lot of people have medical reasons for asking for a drug and as far as i understand, that's my take on it. >> howard you think we as a country are taking this issue more seriously this year? or doing enough at this point? why are the numbers continuing to go up and up? caller: we need money. it's going to take money to face this crisis we have and we're bankrupt. you know? that's my take on it. i don't know. host: thanks for call. rodney is in memphis texas. caller: i don't know about the impact but i started off.

i've had back surgery and i got injured on the job and i have a turn rotator cuff but how i feel i have been impacted i was taking darviset and they take it off the market and the way i feel i've been impacted my doctor made me sign this five page contract and it took me a half a day to read it and i feel i've been impacted because of the addicts i used to get a 90 day supply of pills and this year the president and all these other people that i'm in a contract and they give me a drug test every now and then to see if i have any illegal drugs in my system where i don't use

illegal drugs and they even test my blood to make sure i have what i'm taking four pills a day and i have to take them because of the pain. you do, if you don't get your pills like your doctor is out of town i might go two or three days and you do have that feeling like you got the stomach virus and all that but i feel like i've been impacts because people that have abused them and i'm honest about it and what i take it for and it does relieve my lower back pain and in my shoulders but the people that's taking it honestly and there's other people i talked to and even the doctor was given me a 90 day supply because i go every six month for us check up with him and he said you're going to

have to go to your family doctor now because we can't have a refill you have to go in every month or he's got to get it from your family doctor. so i feel like i've been impacted from it. >> thanks for the call this morning. a few tweet as we're having this discussion. this issue is just going to allow the government to get more involved in people's lives get on the government approved place to get your meds. they have marketed opioids like candy but we need to hold the individual executives responsible and they said part of the healthcare system. trump should fund healthcare all for all. and one said wants c-span producers explain how the money people are begging for stem this crisis.

nancy pelosi period at a hearing it was the energy and commerce committee that held this hearing in october on allowing members of congress to talk about what they thought they needed to combat the opioid crisis and the things they thought would work best. nancy said this. >> i believe that it is really important for us to respond to this national with the seriousness and urgency it requires. fortunately we have had bipartisan ship in passing legislation and the comprehensive act of recovery and we came together in the bipartisan legislation that was passed in the 21st century cure act that people were so happy the addition language was in there that day. we heard the stories of families so sad it would break your heart. families that lost a young teen

or 21 years old a matter of weeks before that particular signing that president obama signed that legislation but it had the language it just doesn't have money to adequate extent and that's my appeal for democrats and republicans to work together to have the funding to fund the key initiatives authorizing the bill. i want to make a pitch for medicaid. on the expansion was provided a vital lifeline for tens of thousands of americans struggling with addiction. as governor of ohio. our form eco leagues. thank god we expanded medicaid because that money helps to rehab people. yet 19 states have not taken that step. we stand ready to work with you in good faith with republican tossup date and improve the aca

but we remain vigilant efforts to gut medicaid because it will create even more of a problem in terms of opioids just to name one thing. host: again all of the hearings are available on the c-span archives and you can see that at c-span.org. taking your calls until 8:00 on this issue. caller: good morning. merry christmas and happy new year. host: same to you. caller: michael dyson addressed this few days ago talking about racial disparities between those that use heroin and meth that are predominantly white users and the crack epidemic of the 80's and 90's were predominantly black users and what they did in the 80's and 90's they incarcerated pre dominantly

african-american users and democrats and republicans, democrats are just want to process that. actually created legislation in order to make mandatory minimums for these drug users who were african-american so now we fast forward and we have a quote unquote crisis but it's predominantly white users that are addicted to heroin and meth. they throw the book at the african-american users. if you look at the prison system african-americans predominantly african-american people you do not see this and white people going to jail over drugs. you do not see that. michelle alexander talked about this in the book the new jim crow. so what i would like to see is,

you know, everyone treated equally under the law. host: what is the right way to treat people on this issue? you think what is happening now is the better way of treating people and locking people up would help stem the crisis we're seeing more than 40,000 people die of over dose last year? caller: i hate to say just lock everybody up because you know if they have a problem which i do believe an addiction is a big problem, but like i said before, to make someone just to get off of drugs i don't think, you can't make people get off of drug drugs. so if they go to jail, i assume even though you can get access

to drugs in jail too one would assume you have a limited access to drugs in jail so maybe they should go to jail. i don't know what the answer is. all i know is there's not equal in the eyes of the law and that is a problem. host: thanks for call. maggie in california on the line for those impacted by the opioid epidemic. go ahead. caller: hi. merry christmas. i'm a person that had a very bad back problems. scoliosis and others i have fractures and i also got sick when i was 34 and have made these things much worse. lived in california all my life and for four years i was trying to find a doctor that would help me because i was a nurse and it was really impacting my work and i was in so much pain and i

would sweat all night and it was i was losing my life to pain. the thing about pain is that it's not just the pain. it steals your energy and it steals your vitality and you can't focus on anything else so when you are living in a world of pain, it's really horrible and i finally one night was watching 60 minutes with my husband and i saw a doctor being profiled on there named william who was practicing in virginia and i said that's the guy i need to see because he was putting people on oral morphine and they were getting their lives back. these are people some of them had been in wheelchairs and you know on disability and for decades and you know families fell apart and everything ruined. host: how many years have you been on it and has it ever

impacted you negatively? caller: well i did go there and get put on it and it gave me my life back and my own doctor in california who was initially against it saw how good i was doing and he said, called me up on a sunday morning at home and said i've been thinking about you and i know what a hardship is it is for you to go to virginia every three months and paying for this out of pocket i'll take over prescribing so i was on oral morphine for 15 years and it didn't climb up very much over in the years and i took it regularly and i didn't abuse it and i had to move back to san mateo to take care of my parents who were dying and by

this time i had become a widow myself, and had to get medical care somewhere else. i couldn't keep going where i was going it was over 100 miles away. i started get push back. and they're jerking me around about the medicines and things have changed politically and now they're not so fast and loose to give you this stuff and they want to get you off it and that's what they tell me they want me to do and i'm like but i have horrible pain and my condition has only gotten worse. i'm not doing anything wrong with my medicine and they just wouldn't an they cut me off. they put me on a come down schedule. they didn't like give me none but then i had nothing for my pain and i tried to deal with that and i lasted four months until the colder weather set in

and i couldn't deal with it and i found another doctor in fresno and i'm driving from san francisco to fresno every month to see this doctor and this other doctor that had kicked me off it called him and said you shouldn't prescribe to her so i got left with nothing. so i'm high and dry. what do i do now? i'm trying to find a doctor who will prescribe for me but you know what? i can find heroin and i'd never done heroin in my life and i never wanted to do heroin but that was like a whole lot cheaper than - i'd ask people do you know anybody that has any pills to sell or can i get morphine tablets to get one of the tablets i used to take would have been about like $15 a pill. nine of them a day?

>> have you done heroin. caller: i have. i spent the last two weeks detoxing. this is my detox christmas. i've been alone and i'm coming off it now and it's been really horrible and i don't know what i'm going to do with my pain but i can't afford doing heroin anymore and i'm not going to sell myself or steal or sell my jewelry you know? i'm there's just things i'm not going to do. i'm not going to go into debt for this and basically not affordable for me. i know they say heroin is cheap but you're over 50 white woman i think they jack up the prices and i had to know somebody and that person is not around and then you got to find somebody else who knows somebody and it just just a horrible thing and it's a terrible drug. you don't know what it's in it

and it does awful things to your bodien and it's not clean and i'm thinking all these doctors now are so scared and they don't want to give even people with legitimate medical problems. see friends. that's you know, right. my journal. that's the things i wanted to do. host: appreciate you sharing. sharing your story. good luck and in the recovery effort and continuing to try to stay off. give us a call down the road. i want to hear from you again. we're likely talking about the

subject down the road in 2018. more callers waiting for you. gina in daytona florida. go ahead. caller: yes, thank you for taking my call. i appreciated the women's testimony from california. gave us an inside feel. there's a senator ed marky of massachusetts and he wanted to charge he wanted to start like a one percent tax. they started this. when they put the opioids on the market they said it was a one percent chance. one percent of addiction. that's a lie. that's a dastardly lie. you have states like west virginia, ohio and whole cities of people from teenagers to senior citizens that are

becoming addicted all because of these opioids and like the woman from california said, then you turn to heroin here in florida seven years ago the opioids were being produced, sent from florida all over in the country. it was criminal. the governor scott did nothing about it until it got so bad. there's a lot of senior citizens in florida and i have my own theory is that they started to pump them up and they felt good and have access of pills and maybe they're grandchildren or children getting hold of them and then, well anyway florida became the export of opioids which was a disgrace and then they cracked down. they're so afraid of hurting the pharmaceutical companies. now when trump came out and said that he called it a, i don't think he called it a crisis, i think he worded it a bit

different. host: public health emergency. which was in late october when the president declared that. caller: right. exactly and then he did something which i considered cute. he donate when had he said he was going to do one quarter of his salary, quarterly salary to good causes. he gave a certain amount to the national parks well that's cute. his administration cut national parks money. he's giving now i think this past month he said, i'm giving it to the opioid crisis. well they cut the national institute of health. they cut the cdc. i mean who is kidding who here? host: you were talking about a piece of legislation at the beginning of your statement. this may or may not be what you're talking about the budgeting for opioid addiction treatment act introduced by senator joe mansion and it's

called the life tax a one cent stewardship on each milligram of active in a prescription pain pill to fund efforts to access to substance abuse treatment and rebate program for cancer related pain and exempts drugs used for opioid addiction the paperwork he's put out on the life note that is that the fund coordinating be used to establish new facilities and recruiting and increasing reimbursement for certified medical health providers and substance abuse and expanding access to long-term programs for addicts and so on. one cent fee on every milligram of opioid produced, it has been co-sponsored by a number of senators. the senator was tweeting about it's a you saw last week right before congress went out of

session. cody is waiting in texas. caller: yeah, it's sad. it's like the same old story. the crisis comes and people get addicted but if they remember, it's because anytime you went to a doctor no matter if it's for a scratch, the doctor would give you oxycontin, knowing very well that's too much for an incident but yet the doctors have prescribed this over and over to everybody and it is a purpose full, i'm from the streets so i see where the drugs are coming from. they're not coming on the backs of mexicans across the border no they're being shipped over here by our own leaders. our people need to understand, our leaders are hurting us. they're not helping americans one damn bit and we need to wise

up and start making these changes or this whole country is dead. host: on the issue of how americans think about pain treatment at that same energy and commerce committee hearing from october that we showed nancy pelosi testify at. mark wayne mullen of oklahoma talked about this issue. >> we never want to talk about taking medicine backwards but i sit in front of you from a gentlemen who's had surgery since i was a little boy. i was born with my hips out and my feet clubbed and the club feet position and i started having surgeries very young and i built up a large pain tolerance and i've never been one to use pain medicine and now my wife says i'm different than most and i think most people probably agree with that, but i do understand pain.

i understand the need for medicine. but in 96 when pain become incensed and in my opinion we let the genie out of the bottle and we started treating it like it was something that can be treated like the cold and the flu and all we do is mask it and we've seen stronger and stronger drugs coming out. we've seen them become controlled substance and narcotics we sent home in a bottle with prescription and say that's controlled and now we seen an epidemic spread from the middle class, the low class to the wealthy and to our mothers and fathers to our brothers and sisters and co-workers. when do we put the genie back in the bottle. how do we continue to allow addictive drugs continue to be sent home with our loved ones. the highest percentage of death of accidental opioid deaths are

mothers. middle age women. most of them got addicted after birth or an elective surgery. how is that possible? how do we let this continue to move down that path and not say that we have to do something bold about when it's a controlled substance why do we allow to it go home? wouldn't that be better treated in the hospital? we talk about a lot of remedies but we have to go back to where it started and it started when we started treating it like a sense. host: ten minutes left in the washington journal and we're talking asking you if you've seen progress on that issue in 2017 and if so how. what do you think lawmakers and policy makers should do in 2018. christina is in new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. to my fellow americans and i want to wish you happy new year.

in this large topic of the opioid christ is, very sad sub topics. first on a personal level. thanks to the cdc i have lyme disease and as a result of that refusing treatment as they do so many lyme patients i am now in immense pain but i want to share with every american and especially those women that used to go to the doctor and get pain meds and now use heroin. look up for a pain management doctor. i go to a pain management doctor and i get drug tested and urine analysis and you feel like you're on parole but due to what we're experiencing now those of us in chronic pain we agree to go through this drill so-so please don't turn to heroin and

please don't give up and look up for a pain management doctor. i want to go back to something that's been tearing at my heart for years and that is the beautiful woman who brought up the crack/cocaine issue. years and years and years went by where the black community was infiltrated with this disgusting disease, destroyed so many of our fellow americans and nothing was done. nothing was done until oh my gosh, now we have a crisis because the blond haired blue-eyed suburban young lady had overdosed and now we have so much work to do and i think this is a false um... show of concern by our elected officials. i think it's a political exploit and we as americans have to join

our voices together to say that any addiction that addiction is now ruling that person and they need to be put in lock down rehab centers. those people in high levels are generally white older men who have large houses and beautiful cars are not drug users but they are the ones that are putting that poison in our streets and they are the ones that need to be sent to prison for life. host: we'll go to greg waiting in california. go ahead. caller: good morning and happy new year c-span. i've been looking at this issue and i'm telling myself, we do not need to curtail the free market in the pharmaceutical industry. what we need to do is go after the criminal deplorable white people that are abusing these drugs. everyone knows that these white

people that abuse these opiois,s this has a criminal mind-set and we don't need to fund treatment we've already have treatment in the prison industries and what we need to provide is additional two weeks in a jail cell to detox them. the only thing we're going to be able to do is rid ourselves of this criminal deplorable abusive part of society which is these white people. host: why do you think it's just racial lines? caller: well the majority of people addicted on these opioids are white people. one of my best friends is white. my goodness so i'm not racist but white people have a

propensity to abuse drugs. abuse. host: in california this morning. both major papers here focusing on this issue of opioid addiction and heroin. first the front page of the washington times focusing on chris christie who has led president trump's quest to break the stigma of addiction, quoting him as saying we'll have seen that we're, we have begun to remove the stigma of this disease when people willing to impact will demand from their government a response. they don't march today because they're ashamed because they don't want to be identified. chris christie saying that the u.s. finally addressed the hiv/aids crisis because americans parading down the streets of washington d.c. and

said it's time for power brokerings to take opioid epidemic seriously and the "washington post" this morning. the lead story or featured story, i should say, is mexico's drug trade hitting home. the story noting after years of supplying the american market mexican cartels are selling drugs domestically in mexico focusing on that today in the "washington post". time for a few more calls. tracy in ohio on the line for those impacted by opioid epidemic. go ahead. caller: hi. good morning i want to say thank you for covering this particular topic. my thing is i'm impacted kind of like some of the other people stated about the difference in the treatment of the addicts because of color. and also it's like i feel like people of color did not get the help and services they deserve.

it's like no longer a stigma because of the color of the addict and the status of social status of the addict and to me it's getting really offensive because when it did not target somebody that looks like most people on t.v., nobody cared and now all of the sudden it's a crisis but the opioid crisis does not normally effect people of color but it's affecting higher class white people and now seven all of the sudden concerned and this impacted me and it's just the way society is. most people of color did not get painkillers because doctors didn't prescribe them to them thinking they're going to abuse them and at that point they're abused by other people and this is impacting them with total treatment and the way they're treated. the people doing crack/cocaine went to jail and now it's like everybody's job to try to help

the opioid addict and i just think it's totally a disgrace in america how just because what somebody looks like they need help and that's just how i feel. host: tom in california you are also on the line for those affected by this chris sis. good morning. caller: yes good morning. i was calling because i wanted to say a couple of things first of all about donald trump and him declaring a national health crisis as apposed to national health emergency which he originally stated he would declare.

the point i would like to make is for the gentleman that was claiming about white people being addicted, it is just completely nonsense. it is complete nonsense. i live in madison, wisconsin, and i have seen multiple drug transactions on the street , people oftes, black all color. i do agree the epidemic of the 1990's and the 1980's was indeed centralized around african-american communities, and now mandatory minimums, they have been locked up. i have been arrested twice as a , it is time for a

change. healtht was public emergency and health emergency -- we talked about that in october, when it was happening. if you missed those segments on "washington journal," you can watch them anytime at c-span.org. that will do it for the first segment of "washington journal." next, we are joined by ken stern to talk about his book, "republican like me -- how i left the liberal bubble and learned to love the right." later, we look at the 2018 elections in the house and senate. we will be joined by nathan gonzales of inside elections. we will be right back. studentcam -- the tweets say it up.

studentcam in action, video editing and splicing for constitutional document is. this group shows us how it is done -- two stellar interviews in one day. they asked hard-hitting questions. we are asking students to choose a provision of the u.s. constitution and create a video illustrating why it is important. our competition is open to middle school and high school students grades six through 12. $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded. the grand prize of $5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. the deadline is january 18. get copperheads details on our website at studentcam.org. c-span, where history unfolds daily. created as aan was public service byme