Sen. McConnell visits Med Center Health, speaks on Ukraine situation

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Today, Senator McConnell was in Bowling Green and spoke about the developing situation in Ukraine. McConnell said he had just spoken with President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer and Leader McCarthy about the events in Ukraine today.

He couldn’t relay details of that conversation but said his advice to the President both publicly and privately is to ratchet the sanctions as far up as possible.

He said with sanctions, it’s hard to hit the target without collateral damage. He also said Putin was aware of the possibility of sanctions.

He said assuming there’s an insurgency in Ukraine and they’re willing to fight, the U.S. must assist.

“We need to give them the tools to fight with. We need to do everything we can to make this Russian incursion painful on the Russians who are engaged in it. I’m hopeful that’s the path the President will take,” said McConnell.

And the reason Senator McConnell was at Med Center Health was to host a roundtable on the opioid and substance abuse epidemic.

With him was the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta or the ‘Drug Czar’. They were also joined by local, state and federal officials, as well as community stakeholders, experts and law enforcement.

In the closed discussion, they talked about the dangerous drugs coming into the western part of the state. Dr. Gupta says 6 Kentuckians die everyday from drug overdose…fentanyl is driving the majority of these deaths.

Tommy Loving with the Warren County Drug Task Force said right now they are seeing the most issues with meth and fentanyl…and has increased as pandemic restrictions loosen.

“When the border was shut down during the initial pandemic, the supply of meth decreased which upped the price because of the decreased availability but now that’s back wide open again based on the seizures,” said Loving.