COP on the Hill: Stories from the week of Sept 29, 2023

Weekly Activities:

Validation:  Since the 2023 marijuana bills already have over-whelming House/Senate support, this year I have been focusing on treatment.  100s of meetings this year asking for a bill to expand treatment for victims of opioid addiction…my ship came in this week, as I learned about:

HR 1359 – S-644:  Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act

It contains my main message of allowing all doctors in USA to prescribe methadone after a short seminar  of how to dispense it safely to addicts.

Even the title made me smile.  I have told every staffer that the USA is still using the same approach used the past 100 years.  Even as 200 die daily from our current approach.

Wanted: Dead or Alive?:  A long-running professional friend (8 years now) told me during after a presentation that a certain Western, Republican hates me; there is a target (metaphorical) of me on his office wall with my foto on it.  Yikes!

I take this as a great accomplishment.

Old Times:   Going thru security, I saw the Capitol Police officer pull 3 sets of steel, police handcuffs out of this woman’s backpack.  Not something I had seen before.  An hour later in Rayburn, I was intending to go into an office.  The corridor was filled with about 40 people, 25 in wheelchairs, chanting loudly that Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) should come out and talk to them.

I spoke to the Capitol officer for a few minutes (we have known each other for 10 years) and his buddy, a Capitol Police detective…Rest of the story…they eventually arrested 14 in wheelchairs, after they ignored multiple warnings to not block the hallway.

This week:  solid again.

4069 Presentations to Congressional staffers… 12 this week…

365 personal chats with a Member of Congress… 03 this week: R-MT Zinke, R-WA Newhouse, D-CA Sherman

Meetings: 01 Grover Norquist

COP stats since inception: August 2009

444 chats with other elected officials, state reps, senators, VIPs,

109 Appearances/Interviews on major TV/Radio/Print media. 0 This week.

215 interviews and reports in minor media …0 this week –

98 Radio Interviews:  0 this week

33 major conferences attended – CPAC 2023, (3 UN drug conferences in Vienna, Austria),  LULAC, NRA, CBC, ASA, DPA, Dem & Repub. Presidential conventions., National Review, Republican Annual Retreat etc.) 0 this week

in the past – Blaze TV {new, popular right-wing}, (Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, Univision, BBC, CNN, NPR, OAN, German, Swiss, French, Spanish TV and radio) Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, Grand Rapids Press + 9 other MI papers. Chicago Tribune, Honolulu Star Advertiser {foto and caption}, Reason Magazine, Reuters

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