ESSEX JUNCTION — U.S. Sen Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told students at Essex High School Thursday that he wasn’t there to lecture them on why it can be dangerous to use drugs.
But the senator, who’s slated to take the helm of a powerful committee on health care, spent part of a town hall forum doing just that — urging students to share their strategies for coping with stress other than drugs and, specifically, vapes.
“Look, if people are dealing with problems, drugs are not a solution to their problems. Communicating with other people seems, to me, to be a better direction. Am I right? Am I wrong? What’s your experience?” he asked the students Thursday. “Well, tell me.”
Sanders also polled the auditorium, asking students how many of them “know anybody who is struggling with addiction issues.” In a packed room, many raised their hands. He then asked how many know someone who vapes, and even more hands seemed to go up.
“Whoa,” Sanders said. “This is why it’s very good for me to do these meetings — because in Washington, I sit around in committee meetings with people who know nothing about the real world. This is the real world. All right, tell me why you’re vaping. Let’s hear it.”
The senator’s questions Thursday conjured at least one scene in a cable access TV show he created in the late 1980s, when he was mayor of Burlington, called “Bernie Speaks with the Community.” In the scene, which takes place at Ethan Allen Park in the city’s New North End, Sanders sits atop a picnic table, surrounded by a group of kids.
“Do any of the older kids you know have some problems with drugs?” he asks them. “Who wants to talk to me about that? What about drugs? Is that a problem?”
Vaping devices are the most commonly used form of nicotine among young people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health. Sanders also turned his attention to other drugs, describing a connection between substance use disorder and mental health.
“When people feel desperate, when they feel lonely, when they don’t have any hope, drugs become an alternative,” he said. “I’m not here to lecture you — you know this stuff already — but things like heroin will end you up in two places, either in jail or dead. And with fentanyl being put into the heroin, I mean, it’s an awful, awful situation.”
Speaking to reporters after the town hall, Sanders said he was surprised by the number of students who said they know somebody who vapes. The forum also cycled through familiar themes for Sanders, including income inequality and the climate crisis.
He also described to reporters some of his goals for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — which he’s set to chair — such as lowering prescription drug prices and expanding access to federally qualified health centers nationwide.
Sanders acknowledged that many of the sweeping reforms he has long called for in the U.S. health care and pharmaceutical industries, including Medicare for All, have scant possibility of becoming law with the U.S. House under Republican control, and not even all Democrats on board. Still, the senator said Thursday that “if we can’t have universal health care,” he wants to “at least make sure that every person in this country gets to see a primary care physician, no matter where you live.”
Federally qualified, or community, health centers provide care to medically underserved populations and charge sliding-scale fees based on patients’ ability to pay. In Vermont, Sanders told reporters, “we’ve worked very hard to expand community health centers to almost every region in the state … I want to do that all over the country.”
Sanders told reporters that the committee should push for making higher education more affordable, and for increased protections and pay for workers.
“I want to make sure that union-busting companies like Starbucks and Amazon are not able to make it impossible for workers to form unions,” he said at the high school.
The senator told The Washington Post this week that the committee is prepared to use its subpoena power when necessary. On Wednesday, Sanders sent a letter to the CEO of Moderna, urging the company to reconsider its plans to quadruple the price of its Covid-19 vaccine once it shifts to commercial distribution.
In response to a question Thursday, he said that he thinks the Biden administration should take into account the Essex Junction-based manufacturer GlobalFoundries’ decision to lay off hundreds of workers worldwide — including 148 in Vermont — before it distributes funding to the company from the CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed last summer.
