The letter below speaks of the heroin epidemic in the USA.  The figure of heroin and opioid addiction that has destroyed countless families and killed more than 50,000 Americans in 2015 alone is salutary.

A chronicle of President Barack Obama’s tenure must include the heroin epidemic that he leaves us with. Our nation is plagued with a systemic heroin and opioid addiction that has destroyed countless families and killed more than 50,000 Americans in 2015 alone. This one-year death toll is greater than the total number of Americans killed in action during the Vietnam War.

The opioid casualty count only tells part of the story. More than half a million Americans admit to being addicted to heroin, and each of them has a very difficult, if not impossible, road to recovery. Yet, heroin flows into our nation every day and is readily available for $5 a bag 24/7 on street corners throughout the cities and suburbs of America.

How was this level of accessibility not reason enough for President Obama to make slowing our porous borders a priority?  Obama, in his final days as president is now becoming more vocal about the epidemic he leaves behind. However, this is too little, too late in the extreme. His record-setting pardoning and lessening of drug dealer sentences, which have included heroin dealers, further erodes his record on the heroin epidemic. Classifying a heroin dealer as a nonviolent criminal in the face of the American opioid death toll is nonsense.

Perhaps Obama was one of the lucky ones that didn’t have a close friend or relative addicted or taken by heroin and he just didn’t notice the plague that took root under his watch.

Robert Cochran Stafford

Source:  http://www.app.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/01/14/letter-obama-legacy-includes-drug-addiction-epidemic/96557686/