'That's Part Of The Problem!': Witness Lays Into Steve Cohen During Judiciary Hearing

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, Mrs. Rockwall. Mrs. Rockwall, I was here when you testified and I'm very sorry about your son and the circumstances of your husband as well. Did the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, after your son's overdose, do anything to start to inform students about drugs and have some type of a public interest program there, public information? Did we, I'm sorry, did we do- Wisconsin-Milwaukee do anything? The University? Yes ma'am.

They did after we respectfully pushed them and continued to push them. We were able to get naloxone boxes installed across the campus for safety and then we were also able to have them instill a freshman program so that the students were aware of what to do and the signs, et cetera, posters up, all of those kinds of things. Well, thank you for what you did. And do you know if that's been done in other colleges? In Wisconsin specifically, 90% of the University of Wisconsin system does have the naloxone boxes and they are following suit with that. But, you know, every school is different so it's, there's not a unified approach at this point. And as far as they have like an orientation, they tell them about drugs and warn them? Correct. Who do they have do that? Do you know? Is it a police person or is it a community person, an athlete or what? Not an athlete.

The police are involved. In fact, actually as we speak today here right now, there's a program at the University today that we were supposed to speak at that our board is actually presenting for us. So there are speaking events that we are involved in, being involved in, but also the substance department of the school and the police. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know who to ask the question to. Maybe Mr.

Maltz if you can go over the top with me. You're looking at your problems, but whatever. What works? Dr. Singer, you can answer this too or Dr. Westlake. What has proven to work to reduce? Dr. Singer, you got an answer? Please.

Well, in many other countries, they don't have our overdose problem even though there's a drug problem in a lot of Europe. So for example, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Portugal, in France, in Spain, they've put much more of an emphasis on harm reduction. Harm reduction, the concept of harm reduction is to non-judgmentally do things for people that can make whatever choices they're making less dangerous. That should come natural to doctors because in this country and in most developed countries, that's largely what we do. How do you do that? Well, when it comes to drugs, you could again make it easier for people to get the overdose and don't lock zone, allow people to get test strips to test to see what they purchased on the black market is what they think it is, see if it has fentanyl or xylazine, but also allow there are many groups in this country that want to set up these overdose prevention centers, which have been proven to there's not been one overdose taking place. There are two that are right now in defiance of federal law operating in New York City. They started November 2021 and by April of 2022, they already reversed 230 overdose tests.

Those are 230 people who would have been dead. But they're not allowed to do that because that's the only place they have it is in New York City. I beg your pardon? The only place that has that program is in New York. Well, in November 2021, the mayor of New York in defiance of 21 USC Section 856 permitted a nonprofit private harm reduction organization to operate two overdose prevention centers and they've been functioning and so far the Justice Department hasn't acted on it. Okay. Thank you. You know, I think all of us would like to see this reduced eliminated if possible.

And then Mr. Maltz, I appreciate your work in the past. And you know, I don't know if the idea of the death penalty is a good idea because the reality is this is just you know, my guess, I don't think people who buy the fentanyl think they're going to overdose. So they buy it. So they've heard it's a fun trip or a good trip or whatever. And I suspect that the people that deal it don't think they're going to get caught. Even if you have the death penalty, they don't think I'm going to get caught.

So I don't know if that's the answer. I think we have busted a lot of the cartels. Have we not? I don't know their names. Pablo Escobar, somebody we got and put away. Sir, first of all, I apologize for yelling and screaming, but you know what? I've been dealing with the families for many years and there's no action going on in this town. I will tell you this. I will tell you an action.

Let me let me ask. Let me answer the question. First of all, I would appreciate if you stop calling it an overdose. It's a poisoning and it's a war against our kids. So stop with the overdosing. That's part of the problem. The American public thinks it's a substance attack.