US Senators Urge Bipartisan Action to Combat Drug Abuse

Both Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate have called for immediate action to combat drug abuse, which has already caused an alarming number of deaths in the United States.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – According to the media outlet the Hill, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Senator Edward Markey both turned to the Department of Health and Human Services, calling on it to issue a report highlighting the urgency for action on drug abuse.

In 2013, the United States saw an unprecedentedly high number of deaths due to the abuse of heroin and prescription drugs, with some 44,000 deaths from drug overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“This is a bipartisan issue that members of both parties have come together to fight head on,” McConnell told the Hill.

“Fighting drug abuse will take all our efforts at the local, state, and federal level, which is why I invited National Drug Control Policy Director Botticelli to Kentucky to talk about how the federal government can play a role in a solution to our state’s drug problem,” McConnell said.

Meanwhile, US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton made drug addiction one of the major issues of her campaign last week after hearing a number of complaints about opioid abuse during her meetings with supporters.

In a CDC study released in October, the watchdog said that between 2010 and 2012, the number of opioid deaths doubled, surging by another 39 percent in 2013. The research was conducted across 28 states.