Political News, Now.
Bill Clinton Cites Personal Losses in Pushing Fight Against Drug Abuse
KEENE, N.H. — Hillary Clinton has made battling the drug epidemic a central part of her presidential campaign. But she has only briefly mentioned of her personal connection to it.
On Wednesday in Keene,
N.H., Bill Clinton opened up about three people close to the family who
had lost their lives to drug abuse or an overdose.
“I got interested in
this because a young man I had known since he was very young died at 32
while he was working for Hillary in the State Department,” Mr. Clinton
said, his voice growing slightly thin. “And in the M.B.A. law program in
George Washington University.”
Mr. Clinton said that
the man had not been addicted to pain killers, but that he had “drank
four beers” while out with his girlfriend, then went back to his
apartment, where she gave him an OxyContin.
“Millions of Americans
don’t know that if you mix alcohol with opiates, it deadens the part of
your brain that tells your body to breathe while you are sleeping,” Mr.
Clinton said. “So he never woke up.”
He said a similar
thing happened to “the son of the Kosovar Albanian immigrant who lives
across the street from Hillary and me in Chappaqua, N.Y.”
And over Christmas, Mr. Clinton said, “it happened to the daughter of one of my best friends from law school.”
He said that the
daughter spoke four languages and was conversant in another five, and
that her body was found in front of the television.
But after these stories of loss, Mr. Clinton finished on a note of hope.
“We have got to do
something about this,” he said. “And we can do this with the
Republicans. And who knows, they might like it. And we might get in the
habit of doing it.”
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