Conservative political commentator and former Fox News host Eric Bolling said Tuesday the battle against the nationwide opioid epidemic has “got to start at home.”
In an interview on Newsmax TV’s “Newsmax Now,” Bolling, who said his son accidentally overdosed on an anti-anxiety pill, Xanax, that had been laced with the powerful pain medication fentanyl last September, noted the tragedy made him “an accidental expert.”
“You need more awareness, more understanding, more hospital beds,” he said of a national strategy for overcoming an epidemic that kills 175 people a day.
“It’s got to start at home… the ‘not my child’ syndrome, it’s deadly.”
“Number one, you need to talk to your kids,” he added. “Number two, look for sudden changes.”
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In his own case, he said, his son, Eric Chase Bolling, was a bright and outgoing college student who in the “last few weeks before he died… had a marked change in his behavior. There were blocked calls, he didn’t want to talk to us…”
The death came as Bolling had exited Fox News after allegations surfaced that he had harassed colleagues.
The night of Sept. 8, when the news went public, Bolling said “we get that … proverbial parent’s worse nightmare phone call.”
“You think you can go through life… thinking you know what your next step is going to be,” he said, adding that seven weeks later they learned the drug the younger Bolling took was Xanax from China that had been laced with fentanyl.
The following Thanksgiving, Bolling said President Donald Trump called him.
“He had a lot of empathy for this… a parent losing a child,” Bolling said, adding Trump assured him, “they’re on it.”
But he added, “They’re looking at the issue from the supply side… I think they’re lacking on the other side — talking to parents.”
“Really, they have to tackle this on both the supply and demand side,” he added.