china t was legal to manufacture fentanyl up until early march. fortunately our state department and others, you heard from omdc earlier helped to change that so we can get cooperation to reduce the flow t hasn t reduced yet but we have a ways to go. fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin. one gram is like 50 grams of heroin. it can be shipped in the mail. shipped in commercial carriers. fancy way of fedex, dhs, not postal service but other ways you ship packages across borders. it is shipped directly to the states or it is shipped to the canada and mexico. the wall street journal, you know they re all about business, reminds us this is a business. the raw products cost about $1000 for fentanyl can be sold on the streets in the u.s. for about a million dollars. that s pretty big profit margin and that motivates a lot of behavior. so i think as much as we can focus on the supply we better do something to help people in recovery so there is less of a demand for these
epidemic, hosted by the oxford house, this is about an hour and 15 minutes. back in 1971, this postage stamp came out. this is a path we have been down before. the whole question about drug abuse and issues that resolve around opioids. today we re going through the opioid crisis, facts and experiences, but what we need to remember, one of the keys to remember is that in the midst of this opioid crisis, in the midst of the numbers of individuals who are dying as a direct result of their use of opioids, we have to keep in mind that this still represents a comparative drop in the bucket. 50,000 lives lost last year due to opioids, no small number. however, we have to compare that to the 80,000 lives lost due to alcohol and the 500,000 lives lost due to cigarette smoking. remember, the number one leading cause of death in people with addictive disease and recovery is smoking related illness. so the major issue for us to deal with remains tobacco. the second most significant iss
i m part of the breaking news desk at bloomberg news and i m vice president of the national press club. before we get started i would like to remind everyone again, please, to in our in-house audience to please silence cellphones if you haven t already. for our viewing and listening audience follow along on twitter using the #pressclub. for our c-span and public radio audiences, please be aware in our audience today are members of the general public. any applause or reaction you may hear is not necessarily a reaction of the working press. now, i would like to introduce our head table. please hold your applause until each head table member has been introduced. head table participants, please stand up when i say your name. we have jamaal abdul allen, senior staff writer at diverse issues in higher education. we have jerry weller, former u.s. representative from illinois s 11th district and president of the illinois state society in washington. we have mike herks, mpen, a supe
welcome to the national press club, the place where news happens. my name is andrea edney. i m part of the breaking news desk at bloomberg news and i m vice president of the national press club. before we get started i would like to remind everyone again, please, to in our in-house audience to please silence cellphones if you haven t already. for our viewing and listening audience follow along on twitter using the #pressclub. for our c-span and public radio audiences, please be aware in our audience today are members of the general public. any applause or reaction you may hear is not necessarily a reaction of the working press. now, i would like to introduce our head table. please hold your applause until each head table member has been introduced. head table participants, please stand up when i say your name. we have jamaal abdul allen, senior staff writer at diverse issues in higher education. we have jerry weller, former u.s. representative from illinois s 11th distric
and they are beautiful. they are incredible letters. you have my grandmother reporting to my grandfather that she lied to politicians to wanted them to back them on the campaign saying she is not home and can t possibly do it for you. she took part. she was engaged. she was a lot of fun but again compared to lou and elnore she was taking care of her mothers and brother and a family oriented first lady. my grandfather said in writing and in person had it not been for my grandmother doing that and holding the fort he could not have done the job he did. and unlike ms. hoover she lived longer than the president. outlived him by ten years. she is the longest lived first lady still. she was 97 when she died. and she died in new york? no she did in missouri. your mother was in new york in no my mother was in chicago. my family dies all over the place. talk about the person. that person was developed well before they became first lady and how they performed in the o