Speaker 1 (00:00):
… think, and I like to imagine a big bold, because if you don't imagine with boldness, you'll never get there. I do think as we gain more knowledge and more precision with these tools, I do think that one day we will be able to completely heal the brain of someone that has become addicted to drugs. And I think that we all should look that way. We should all be ambitious because that's what we all thinking together and acting together can achieve.
(00:27)
So this is for me, treatment. This is the brain in treatment, drugs damage it. We do interventions to help it. It's an urgent moment. If you don't, the person can die and the person can suffer very severe consequences, but it doesn't end there and we shouldn't end there. We need to build up the structure so that person can regain and get back into the society, create their social networks, be someone that has ambition, be someone that realizes important for others. That area of recovery has been very neglected and I'm happy to say that we are actually trying to move to figure out how do we maximize the likelihood that someone that has gone to treatment achieves that recovery. And so we created a research network towards recovery. And also before my time is over because I have four minutes, 49 seconds, is that we need to actually be bold in search of the cure, but we also need to look upstream so that we can protect every single person of these on future generations.
(01:45)
We have already a lot of knowledge of what is it that makes a person vulnerable to taking drugs. What is it that makes a person vulnerable to becoming addicted? And researchers now for more than I would say close to three decades have been developing prevention interventions which have been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of a person to go into substance use and then addiction. It is not very difficult. It's in many ways, from the perspective of interventionist, a non-brainer. Reduce the risks that we have come to recognize. Adverse childhood experiences is a very influential negative effect on increasing your risks. And basically we know what actually provides you resilience, supportive families, supportive communities, giving children alternatives, having a dialogue, giving them opportunities. Neglect, lack of alternatives, opportunities, discrimination, cruelty, lack of empathy, lack actually ultimately of love.
(03:00)
And you sort of say, "Oh, we speak a lot about love," but it is one of the most consequential things for us of humans, and if you don't have it is one of the most adverse and devastating. So how do we protect that new generations just like those hands are over there to ensure that we give them the greatest chances? And how do we use these advanced technologies that we right now have joining in terms of interventions to help parents to support them, to give communities a good environment, but also to provide resilience and to be able to buffer changes that may have negatively impacted the brain of a child that grew under very, very adverse conditions. This is what science gives us the opportunity to do it, if again, we take that knowledge and bring it into the next level. Because prevention works, we know that, but we're not implementing it.
(03:59)
And if I want to actually leave everyone there with a thought is that we cannot continue to neglect prevention. And that means recognizing it and that means providing the resources and support to sustain those prevention interventions. I actually have this slide. It's not my last, it's the one before the last that actually brings the priorities for the new administration. Yes, address overdose deaths. We will keep fighting on it, but they highlight the things that I've spoken about here. It's not just about treatment. Treatment is extraordinarily important. I don't in any way want to undermine it, but it's also prevention and it is also recovery because if we do not provide recovery, the risk of relapse are much higher. And these are the individuals that are highest risk to become the overdose fatalities of the future. We cannot neglect it and we cannot neglect prevention. And of course I was delighted to see, we need to recognize how powerful innovation research and we are now in the data science, and we need to be part of it and we need to take advantage of it because this is an important cause.
(05:28)
And I end my last slide with this one. The cascade of care model for substance use disorder. I don't call it the cascade of care model for opioid use disorder because it's not really one drug. And when we speak about prevention, it's not that you prevent a child from taking opioids or cocaine. You prevent that child from using alcohol, you prevent a child from using cannabis. You prevent them from sharing nicotine because like the term it says, the cascade of care model, there is a cascade of use of substances. You start with one and you go in. And the same thing with science. I want to actually provide this data for all of you because it is, I say the generation of the science. The knowledge is just the first step. The next step is to let that knowledge and science cascade through all of you through your communities so that we can all together make a big difference so that next year we see an even higher reduction in overdose deaths. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
President Trump selected a good friend of this Senate to serve as the 87th Attorney General of the United States, Mrs. Pamela Bondi. In fact, last week she announced a major blow to Mexican cartels with a drug bust that resulted in half a billion dollars of cocaine that was stopped from coming into your communities. Will you please help me welcome Attorney General Pamela Bondi back to the Senate.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (08:14):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
She served as the Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2019, and she was the first female elected to that office. On day one of her new role, Attorney General Bondi issued 14 directives and she hasn't slowed down at all. In fact, just last week she announced a major blow to the cartels that I just referred to. So question one, we're going to do a conversation with the Attorney General and we want her to feel free to take off on any subject that she desires, but let me pose a question or two.
(09:23)
Attorney General Bondi, it is wonderful to see you back here. She was here on the very first of these summits 14 years ago, and she's been back a time or two more. And we're thrilled that she took the time from a very, very busy schedule to come be with you as you go about your chores of saving lives. That's her goal and ambition. First, let me congratulate you, Madam General, on your promotion as the 87th Attorney General and our nation's Chief Law Enforcement Officer. As we begin this conversation, please take a moment to share with us what your priorities are for the department and the nation's men and women in blue who protect us.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (10:40):
All right, I thought you were going to come sit with me.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yes. Excuse me.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (10:55):
All right. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Chairman. Well, our priorities are pretty easy. President Trump gave us a very clear directive, make America safe again. And that includes going back to the basics of fighting violent crime. And that's the basics. Getting the bad guys off the street, the bank robbers, the armed robbers, the murderers, the violent criminals, the gangs who are bringing all these drugs in our country, but also eradicating drugs from our country. And it's all kinds of crime. And now we're looking at what they did, Chairman, with Tesla. They're firebombing and those bombs are a weapon of mass destruction. It's crazy to me what they've done. And we've made six arrests and those people are looking at 20 years in prison each, and we are not negotiating. And they have stopped. The bombings have stopped.
(11:55)
And right now they're state charges. But we're currently looking at what they [inaudible 00:12:00]. In Pennsylvania, Josh and I were AGs together, and then I see on the news that on the first night of Passover, that man's home was almost blown up. I don't know if all of you saw the pictures on the news. It was horrific. It was horrific what they did to him and tried to burn his house down. I mean, there is hate on both sides of the aisle, all across the country. There are crimes and we are doing everything we can to fight violent crime. I always tell the president, "We need 10 more hours in every day," but we're going nonstop. And I think the core, back to the basics, the core, it's the drugs too and eradicating the drugs. So that's why you being here doing this for so many years and all of you being here, you're saving a life every single day by what you do. So thank you all and thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Thank you. When we first started this life-saving mission, some 20 years ago, Eastern Kentucky where I live, was dubbed by the state media as the nation's painkiller capital and Florida was our nation's pill mill capital. Drug trends have changed over the years quite a bit since our first summit. Rather than prescription drug overdoses, synthetic fentanyl from China is now the driving force behind deadly poisonings in America. Where does our nation stand today when it comes to fighting this terrible menace that's impacted all of America? Where do we stand?
Attorney General Pam Bondi (13:53):
It's unbelievable. Every six minutes, and I know you [inaudible 00:13:58], an American overdoses, they overdose from drug abuse and specifically fentanyl. You and I were talking backstage about how really when you started prosecuting it was marijuana. When I started prosecuting, I prosecuted for 18 years before I was state AG and then before I became USAG, and it was cocaine. That was the drug of choice. Then heroin and meth made a comeback, and now it's fentanyl, it's xylazine, it's carfentanil. It's these crazy drugs that are made in China, all made in China and shipped to Mexico and coming right across the border into our country. And I want to digress for a minute because I don't want to forget to say this, and this is everyone out here. We have to tell… These kids, my first experience with fentanyl was when I was state AG and no one really knew what it was.
(14:57)
I fought my own party on getting it scheduled higher because they were telling me, "Fentanyl is something you get on a patch when you're in the hospital and having surgery." I'm like, "No, it's apples and oranges. That's medical fentanyl. This is completely different." And how I learned about it, three young men in Tampa Bay, I think it was in St. Pete, dropped dead. And I can't remember if it was Xanax or Adderall, but it was a drug of choice among college students and they bought it on the street and it was laced with fentanyl. So if we can tell our kids, everywhere I go, I tell everyone, "Don't take anything from anyone." Even if it's a Tylenol, don't accept anything. And these kids think, "Oh, it's Xanax. I'm studying for finals. I don't have a [inaudible 00:15:43]." Don't take anything. Because I think, Chairman, that's how all of these deaths started. So we've got to still educate kids and stop them from doing this. But that's how the original three that I learned about started. And now of course, it's just, it's wildly out of control.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
A few years ago, we had the then attorney general testify before my subcommittee that funds the Department of Justice. And at that time, Florida was the home of the pill mills.
(16:22)
I mean, they were lining up people by the hundreds to go through a so-called doctor's appointment to get pills. And most of the people going down to Florida to get pills were from my district, east Kentucky and the Appalachian area. Well, the attorney general, I was telling him, "The biggest pill mill we have in this country is in Broward County, Florida." And we had a fairly heated exchange between he and me. And finally I said, "You've got the ball. It's in your court. You're the Attorney General in charge of most of the agencies. What are you going to do about the pill mills that you are sworn to eradicate?" And I said, "It's in Broward County, Florida. Let me spell that for you. It's B-R-O-W-A-R-D." Well, you took the ball and got rid of the pill mills. And that was a major blow for the health and welfare of my constituents at that time.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (17:40):
Thank you. And I worked closely with Jack Conway, who was the attorney general at the time. I think it was called the Oxy Express, and would drive down from your state, from West Virginia, even, right? From everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Tennessee.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (17:56):
Tennessee. They would drive to Florida because we had absolutely no regulations. And they were, I called them drug dealers wearing white coats. They were these doctors. And I went all over the state of Florida. This would've been in 2010, 2011. And I went all over the state and I found out about it when I was running for office because I was all over the state and everywhere I went, everywhere I went, whether it was a small urban community or a huge affluent gated community, moms were coming up to me, handing me pictures of their children who had overdosed from oxycodone. And after I became AG, I framed all those pictures in my office as a reminder. And that was another one. I kind of had to fight my own party initially to educate them on what I was seeing and what was happening. So 98 of the top 100 oxycodone prescribers, these are doctors…
Speaker 5 (18:58):
I guess I need to figure out if [inaudible 00:18:58].
Speaker 6 (18:58):
Yeah, it looks like they did.
