WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump should withdraw the nomination of Republican Rep. Tom Marino to be the nation’s drug czar, a Democratic senator said Monday, citing the lawmaker’s role in passing a bill weakening the Drug Enforcement Administration’s authority to stop companies from distributing opioids.
The Washington Post and CBS’s “60 Minutes” reported Sunday on the 2016 law and Marino’s role in it.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he was horrified at the Post story and scolded the Obama administration for failing to “sound the alarm on how harmful that bill would be for our efforts to effectively fight the opioid epidemic” that kills an estimated 142 people a day nationwide.
In a letter to Trump, Manchin called the opioid crisis “the biggest public health crisis since HIV/AIDS,” and said, “we need someone leading the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy who believes we must protect our people, not the pharmaceutical industry.”
The Post reported Sunday that Pennsylvania’s Marino and other members of Congress, along with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to an industry-friendly law that undermined efforts to restrict the flow of pain pills that have led to tens of thousands of deaths.