Pennsylvania political candidates talk fentanyl as midterms approach
A day after Gov. Tom Wolf (D) declared war on an opioid crisis, his opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Tom Wolf (R), said lawmakers should start taking action on the crisis.
(AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Posted: Nov. 22, 2019 7:46 AM
Updated: Nov. 22, 2019 8:45 AM
Posted By: By Alex Berenson
A day after Gov. Tom Wolf (D) declared war on an opioid crisis, his opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Tom Wolf (R), said lawmakers should start taking action on the crisis.
“I don’t think you can wait until the elections are over to get this done,” Wolf said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Wolf said he has proposed a law to allow drug manufacturers to bring lawsuits against individuals and pharmacies for illegally selling opioids, but he said he wants to do more to fight the crisis at the state level.
“You can’t just play around with the prescription drug crisis when you have so many people in jail [for] selling drugs,” Wolf said.
Wolf wants to take over the task of regulating the opioid crisis, and is calling for a special commission to act as the “chief regulator” of the drugs, including those for treatment.
“We should have done this decades ago, and we shouldn’t be letting the states have that role,” he said.
Wolf has been trying to paint opponent Wolf as “an unhinged far-right crazball” for several weeks.
Wolf and his campaign had been hoping to get out in front of the opioid crisis by focusing on Wolf’s military background and the military’s history of dealing with drug problems. But Wolf was unable to do that, and the opioid crisis dominated the campaign, instead.
Wolf told the host that he does not think the war on opioids has made Americans safer, and instead thinks it has made them more “dysfunctional” and that “most people who are involved in drug addiction were using before it was legalized and regulated in the ’80s and ’90s.”
Wolf’s campaign