elisha cummings is also part of the conversations. from today's "washington journal", this is three hours. >> host: if you take a look across the country and in the papers that represents cities and states, opiates are problem there too. this is the seattle times. recent statistics show a people a day in one county after fighting the tightening of rules there. sarah says that opiate overdoses have nearly doubled compared to last year. possibly because stricter rules for prescribing the drug. a weeklong survey

elisha cummings is also part of the conversations. from today's "washington journal", this is three hours. >> host: if you take a look across the country and in the papers that represents cities and states, opiates are problem there too. this is the seattle times. recent statistics show a people a day in one county after fighting the tightening of rules there. sarah says that opiate overdoses have nearly doubled compared to last year. possibly because stricter rules for prescribing the drug. a weeklong survey conducted earlier show 57 incidents in that district reported on wednesday. that's eight per day. that compares with 37 cases in a similar survey early last year. in an effort to understand this comes at a time of increased national attention. the class of drugs include fennel, heroin and prescription painkillers. if you go to the pages of "the san francisco chronicle", another perspective taking a look at drug manufacturers. this is catherine writing from the chronicle. she said it's been 18 months since the san francisco drug d

that is why we are in such favor of the care act introduced by congressman elisha cummings before coming to baltimore later today to speak about it. the idea of the care act is that it is direct funding to local jurisdictions the most impacted and proportional to the severity of the epidemic and sustained so we don't have to rely on one off ending. it is modeled after the ryan white act for hiv-aids nearly 30 years ago at the peak of the hiv aids epidemic people or had similar things with the opioid epidemic and people were dying in record numbersor however there is a solution. there is evidence we can turn the tide. that is what we see on the front lines we know it works. we are doing that already in baltimore we just need the resources and the will to scaleal up evidence-based interventions we have already started here and assistance not only at the city we c are doing so much on a shoestring budget but what we critically need the assistance of the federall government trump declared a state of public health emergency we need to see those resources that follow that declarationtohe. >> w

thank you again, elisha, for ah, forg me -- elij inviting me. rep. cummings: i want to thank all of you for being here. we have accomplished exactly what i hoped we would. i am very pleased to have my wife here. she is a strong advocate on these issues and always has been. andknow, as i sat here williams,o you, ms. and i was thinking about all the things that have been said here, you just made me realize that we are on the right track. word that seems to have flowed around this whole table, it is "flexibility." when i was in the hospital for over six months over the last year or so, one of the things that just struck me when i talked to a lot of the patient s, one lady said i can get the and she was talking about her ailments in the hospital -- but i cannot get the cure after she got out. you can do a little bit here, but if you can't get the follow-up and the wraparound and the transportation and housing and things like that, it is not going to work. the other thing that means so much is the word "dignity." when people talk about the dignity, thats affects t