President Donald Trump selected Pennsylvania Congressman Tom Marino in April 2017 to be his drug czar, which means Marino would head the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The drug czar would address the administration’s highest priorities, the opioid crisis, which killed nearly 60 thousand people in 2016.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/328315-trump-picks-tom-marino-as-drug-czar-report/
President Trump declared the opioid crisis “a national emergency,” which explains why it took several months once he became president for him to name a drug czar and why after so many months his nominee would appear to make sense only to someone who was either a drug company executive or addicted to drugs.
Marino withdrew his name from the position when it was reported that he had worked with the pharmaceutical industry to write legislation, the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, which made it more difficult for the Drug Enforcement Agency to enforce drug laws.
If Marino had been hired to make it easier for millions of Americans to get their hands on highly addictive pain killers that often result in death, he would have been your guy.
Unfortunately for Marino, the position called for someone to rectify the crisis and not make it worse.
Who knew?
An investigation by the Washington Post and the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, revealed that Marino’s legislation “helped pump more painkillers into parts of the country that were already in the middle of the opioid crisis,” as NPR reported.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-marino-opioid-crisis-60-minutes-report-trump/
The DEA had opposed the bill that had been embraced by the drug industry.
“Political action committees representing the industry contributed at least $1.5 million to the 23 lawmakers who sponsored or co-sponsored four versions of the bill, including nearly $100,000 to Marino,” the Washington Post reported. “The drug industry spent $106 million lobbying Congress on the bill and other legislation between 2014 and 2016.”
Marino did not act alone.
The Obama administration worked with Marino and others in Congress to approve the legislation.
Marino issued a press release taking credit for the legislation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/
This must have been comforting to constituents in his northeastern Pennsylvania district that had been hit particularly hard by the crisis.
But, shockingly, it wasn’t.
No good turn goes unpunished.
Amber Hamilton told the New York Times that she was angry after learning their congressman wrote the legislation that made it easier to get your hands on opioids.
“Does he even care about his people?” Hamilton said.
Hamilton, a mother of two, who said she is a recovering addict.
“I don’t want my kids to have the life I have. And I want a politician,” she said, “to care about the community and want to make it better, not worse.”
