ICYMI: Michigan Dems Blast Mike Rogers Over Opioid Stance in Congress [Bridge Michigan]

Bridge Michigan: “Community leaders from southeast Michigan recounted their own brushes with the crisis that kills a Michigander every four hours, and criticized Rogers for accepting money from opioid manufacturers while sponsoring bills aimed at increasing the availability of opioids to patients suffering from pain.”

LANSING — Bridge Michigan reported on Sep 12th, that community leaders “blasted Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers Thursday in the wake of a Bridge Michigan investigation of his role in increasing access to prescription opioids and accepting political contributions from opioid manufacturers while in Congress in the 2000s.”

• Derrick Jackson, Director of Community Engagement for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department: “For me, this is personal. It’s not politics… When I read that he (Rogers) refused to take any responsibility, then I was like, ‘I have to be here to actually say something.’ I think about what an elected leader does. We all make mistakes, and so for me, I would anticipate someone would recognize their mistakes. They would learn from it. They would make sure future policy is better.”

• Tim Pryor, Clarkston resident: “Pharmaceutical companies … needed to find allies in the United States Congress. And evidently, they found one in Congressman Mike Rogers. That was disappointing to me.”

• Angela Rogensues, Warren City Council President: Rogers “took money from these companies, pushed legislation and increased their profits, while spurring a crisis that we still battle today.”

Read the full report: 

Bridge Michigan: Michigan Dems blast Mike Rogers over opioid stance in Congress

• Democrats blasted Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers Thursday in the wake of a Bridge Michigan investigation of his role in increasing access to prescription opioids and accepting political contributions from opioid manufacturers while in Congress in the 2000s.
• “Rogers led the charge in Congress for increased access to opioids, and the bills he wrote did not provide additional protections for over prescribing,” Warren City Council President Angela Rogensues, said at a Detroit press conference organized by the state Democratic Party.
• “He took money from these companies, pushed legislation and increased their profits, while spurring a crisis that we still battle today.”
• Bridge found that Rogers was a leading advocate for increased access to opioids to fight pain during his time in Congress, where he served from 2001-2015. Prescriptions to synthetic opioids like Oxycontin skyrocketed during the decade of the 2000s, as did opioid addiction and deaths. In 2023, there were 2,267 opioid-related deaths in Michigan, more than tenfold the number who died in 2000 (196).
• …In Thursday’s Democratic Party press conference, community leaders from southeast Michigan recounted their own brushes with the crisis that kills a Michigander every four hours, and criticized Rogers for accepting money from opioid manufacturers while sponsoring bills aimed at increasing the availability of opioids to patients suffering from pain.
• Clarkston resident Tim Pryor said what separates the opioid crisis from the rest of the drug war is “it’s not offshore cartels” that sparked the epidemic, but “companies here in America operating within the law. Those pharmaceutical companies … needed to find allies in the United States Congress. And evidently, they found one in Congressman Mike Rogers. That was disappointing to me.”
• What distinguished Rogers from others in Congress was his close ties to pain associations that were later discovered to be bankrolled by the drug companies trying to increase sales of products like Oxycontin. 
• In Rogers’ recent responses to Bridge’s investigation, the former congressman declined to say whether Congress played a role in the crisis, putting the onus only on doctors and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
• That answer was disappointing to Derrick Jackson, director of community engagement for the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department, who spoke at Thursday’s press conference.
• “For me, this is personal. It’s not politics,” said Jackson, who said his wife is in recovery from opioid addiction. “When I read that he (Rogers) refused to take any responsibility, then I was like, ‘I have to be here to actually say something.’ I think about what an elected leader does. We all make mistakes, and so for me, I would anticipate someone would recognize their mistakes. They would learn from it. They would make sure future policy is better.”

See also: Bridge Michigan: Mike Rogers vows to fight drug war, but urged opioid access in Congress

Note: Contact Sam Chan at [email protected] for a recording of the press conference.