They're doing irreparable harm to this to the country, to the people who use drugs in this country. People are dying as a result of stigma; people aren't accessing services as a result of stigma.
When politicians utilize this as an opportunity to get election votes or get ahead in their careers, they are doing harm that is killing people. They need to be rooting their decisions and what they say in public with evidence and utilizing the expertise of people like the witnesses here today rather than listening to the opinions and prohibitionary stigma that is feeding the opinions of folks across this country and only further inflaming the stigmatizing belief system around substances.