During his talk before the West Virginia Council of Churches on Monday, U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin pointed his finger at doctors, pharmaceutical companies and the federal Food and Drug Administration for their roles in the state's opioid drug crisis.
Later, Manchin also expressed support for drug testing people who live in public housing, an idea he said was suggested to him by a group of middle school students whose parents suffer from drug addiction.
"Our moms and daddies don't use that money for us," the students said, according to Manchin.
"I said, all this makes sense, but don't you understand, where do we put you all?" he said. "We take you out of a drug-infested home, what do we do to save you? They said, 'you put me in foster care. Foster care is the only thing that can save me. My mom is still a drug addict from Beckley.'"
Manchin, D-W.Va., said after his talk that he planned to take the idea back to Washington with him.
"I think it's something that we have to consider," he said. "I think absolutely we should be looking at how do you have drug-free areas."
Jamie Lynn Crofts, staff attorney for the ACLU of West Virginia, said Monday afternoon that there is no legal precedent for drug testing public housing residents specifically, but that legal precedent for drug testing welfare recipients in general would apply. She said courts have found such tests count as searches under the Fourth Amendment and are unconstitutional.
"Generally any type of drug test without probable cause and a warrant is unconstitutional," Crofts said.
Asked whether he was proposing that drug addicts should have to sleep on the streets, Manchin said, "I asked the kids the same thing and they said, 'Do you want us to stay in a home with a parent that's drug-infested? You think we're safe there? We usually end up going back to our grandparents.' I'm speaking to these kids who are on the front lines."
Manchin said treatment would have to be offered to people. "You can't do any of this until you have adequate treatment centers," he said. "If a person's addicted and you test them and they're dirty and they're living in a subsidized apartment or housing, that person should be mandated to go to a treatment center. You're not helping them or the children by leaving them in a place that's drug-infested. Do everything you can to help them.'
"Go to Oceana," Manchin said. "They'll tell you." The Wyoming County town was the subject of the recent documentary "Oxyana," detailing residents' problems with OxyContin and other prescription painkillers.
Manchin spoke at 8 a.m. Monday at the Council of Churches' Annual Assembly at Christ Church United Methodist, in Charleston. Panels on racism and substance abuse were planned later Monday.
As Manchin talked about how the country got to this point, he criticized the drug war and acknowledged that a public health approach is needed.
"For the last 20 or 30 years, we've treated drug addiction - drug use - as a crime," he said. "We've never looked at it as an illness."
As politicians fought over who could come across as tougher on crime, that approach led to spending more money on jails than rehabilitation centers, Manchin said. He expressed support for alternative sentencing and reducing mandatory sentencing guidelines for drug offenses.
"We just thought, 'who could be the toughest?' but the bottom line is, who's going to be the smartest?" he said. "We had three decades. It doesn't work."
Manchin blamed pharmaceutical companies for pumping painkillers into the market, and doctors for pushing pills. At one point, he mimicked a pharmaceutical rep.
"You'll enjoy it," he said. "We'll bring you to this retreat. We'll educate you in between our golf rounds and everything else. We might work out some time to educate you. This is what we're dealing with."
He also slammed the FDA for recently approving OxyContin for 11-year-olds and allowing Zohydro, a powerful painkiller, on the market.
"Two pills can kill you," he said. "They put it on the market anyway, the FDA did, and to add insult to injury, recently they've recommended OxyContin for 11-year-olds because of pain. Now if that child is terminally ill and you're trying to give them some relief, I understand. We have to do what we can to give them relief. I sympathize with the family and parents but I can guarantee you if you look at their past performances, they'll start marketing that to non-terminally ill children."
He told church leaders they were on the "front lines" and implored them to share with him any ways they could further help.
"I watch this political correctness going on in Washington," he said. "Separation of church and state. You can separate religion from politics but you can't separate the love human beings have for each other."
Manchin also said that while he and President Barack Obama have vastly different views on energy policy, he appreciates the president's visit to Charleston on Wednesday to talk about the prescription drug and heroin problem.
"I really thank him for coming," he said. "He's coming to the state where he's the least popular."
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazette.com, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, 304-348-5163, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.