The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source:
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 03:06 PM
Bredesen Puts Blackburn On Spot Over Opioid Law Postion
Bredesen discussed the idea at an opioid forum in a packed day on the campaign trail for the two Senate hopefuls in a tightly contested race.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa also visited Tennessee to boost Blackburn, weighing in on President Donald Trump’s tariffs during an agricultural round-table. Ernst said Iowa farmers can tolerate tariffs in the short term, but trade deals need to be completed soon.
At the opioid event, Bredesen said the Blackburn-backed law “defanged” the Drug Enforcement Agency in its fine print. Further, Bredesen said “Congress needs to admit that it has an opioid problem.”
Reports by The Washington Post and CBS News in October 2017 shed light on the law passed unanimously by Congress and signed by then-President Barack Obama. Republican Rep. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, whose involvement in the legislation was detailed in the reports, withdrew his name from consideration to become Trump’s federal drug czar shortly after the news reports.
Blackburn has called for addressing any “unintended consequences” of the law, which she said she became involved in to ensure people who needed prescription drugs could get them, while also cracking down on illicit opioid use. She has received about the 19th most donations in Congress from the pharmaceutical and health products industries this election cycle, according to The Center for Responsive Politics.
Bredesen’s campaign said it’s been more than 300 days since Blackburn said she’d work on the unintended consequences.
“The only people it makes mad is pharma, and I don’t care about that,” Bredesen told reporters, concerning a proposal repeal. “Let’s help some of these people in local government, local law enforcement, local health care facilities to start cutting off some of the flow of these drugs into the pill mills and places like that.”
Blackburn told reporters that the Drug Enforcement Agency was supposed to report back to Congress in April 2017 about whether the law wasn’t working, but has missed its deadlines.
