From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

America’s “insatiable demand for drugs” is a root cause of the country’s “insecure border,” according to a report to be issued Thursday by a committee headed by Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee, has been focusing on border issues as well as the use of opioids, which have become a health problem in Wisconsin and across the country.

The report lays out the work Johnson’s committee has done on the drug issue. He’s in a tough re-election fight against Democrat Russ Feingold.

“At multiple Committee hearings, witnesses testified that an ‘all of the above approach’ is needed — prevention, treatment and law enforcement — to tackle the public health crisis,” the report says.

“While there is no silver bullet solution to curb the demand for drugs in this country, one thing is clear: our current approach is not working.”

The report says “it is clear that the over-prescription of pain medications has led to an entire generation of people who have become addicted to and dependent on opioids.”

The report concluded with vivid testimony from Lauri Badura, whose son Archie died in 2014 from a drug overdose at age 19. She said “for moms and dads like us, we’ve lost our children to this opiate addiction and this epidemic. The lack of attention on this ridiculously large number of deaths, 47,000 in a single year, we do not always understand.”