i want to thank dr. miller for your hospitality. thank you for joining us. we are honored to have you in our presence. thank you for testifying and for all that you are doing to help us combat opioids and save lives. a year and a half ago in our committee's first hearing on the issue, i warned that so many people were dying in communities across america and that we could no longer ignore this emergency. today the centers for disease control estimates that more than 64,000 americans died from drug overdoses in 2016 and that's an increase of more than 20% over the year before. to put it into perspective, the death toll from the overdoses last year alone was higher than allus military casualties in iran and iraq wars combined. every 20 minutes, every 20 minutes someone dies from an overdose. if it lasts for two hours, a half dozen families will have lost a parent, a sibling or a child to opioids. we have the reports and you had years of talk. now it's time for action. the american people are looking for us to take action. they are looking to the president and t