Yesterday I posted on how a Democrat shill — also a convicted felon but I don’t want to be redundant — had traveled from New Jersey in an attempt to embarrass Ted Cruz with a question about drug addiction. As you may know, Ted Cruz’s older sister, Miriam, died of a drug overdose and he frequently speaks on the subject of drug addiction and its costs. Last night he got the question during the debate:

MCELVEEN: You’re all aware, candidates, this is a major problem here in New Hampshire. It’s a very deadly problem as well. Last month, New Hampshire senators Kelly Ayotte, Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat, they went down to Washington, along with the police chief of the state’s largest city to testify before the Judiciary Committee in D.C.

Senator Cruz, you’re a member of that committee. Your campaign schedule didn’t allow you to attend this. Even so, the police chief called your absence outrageous, given the severity of the problem. Last week, though, you told a personal story of a close family member’s struggle with addiction. What can you say to law enforcement right now to convince them that you understand the severity of this problem and you’re not just saying what people want to hear days before the primary?

CRUZ: Well, Josh, as you noted, this is a problem that, for me, I understand first-hand. My older sister, Myriam, who was my half- sister, struggled her whole life with drug and alcohol addiction. My father and her mom divorced when she was a little girl and she was angry her whole life, and she ended up marrying a man who had been in and out of jail. She then became a single mom and she herself went to jail several times and she ended up spending some time in a crack house.

CRUZ: I still remember my father and me driving up to get Myriam out of that crack house to try to convince her she needed to be a mom to — to my nephew Joey.

She wasn’t willing to listen. She was not willing to change the path she was on. She was angry. I was — had just gotten my first job coming out of law school. I took a $20,000 loan on a credit card to put my nephew, Joey, in Valley Forge Military Academy — he was in sixth grade at the time, to pay his way through that.

And about five, six years ago, Miriam died of an overdose. It was — the coroner ruled it accidental. We don’t know. She went to one night, had taken too many pills, and Joey walked in and found her dead.

This is an absolute epidemic. We need leadership to solve it. Solving it has to occur at the state and local level with programs like A.A., and counseling, and churches and charities. But it also has to be securing the borders, because you have got Mexican cartels that are smuggling vast amounts of heroin into this country.

We know how to secure the borders. What is missing is the political will to do it.

And as president, I will secure the border, we will end this deluge of drugs that is flowing over our southern border and that is killing Americans across this country.

MCELVEEN: And Governor Christie, you have talked a lot about this issue here in New Hampshire.

(APPLAUSE)

This is powerful testimony on a difficult subject. And, though Cruz has been criticized by some for mentioning border security, in reality the only federal role in combating drug addiction is by stopping the flow of drugs into the nation. And a border that is so porous that it allows millions of illegal immigrants to enter each year cannot be said to be doing anything measurable to stop the flow of drugs.