Opioid Epidemic
Top of my campaign
promises is to write legislation on behalf of the Opioid
addicted. Every year, over 70,000 people die, and it cost the U.S. over
$565 billion dollars. I would create legislation that would start a trial program that would place the opioid
addicted away from the general public to rest for one year. Specificity, in the care of either a guardian such as
a parent who accepts responsibility for the individual or in a isolated environment where
healing can take place. The addicts will be asked to give the name of their drug dealers in hope to save additional lives, rid
heavy drug trafficking and allow our first responders to go back to
doing their job without distraction or harm from the addicts who carry diseases and are very erratic.
I am focused on a solution on how to stop this Epidemic, which is destroying families, ruining healthcare, adding Trillions of dollars to our deficit and directly causing half of all major Crime in the U.S. Let me point out some other devastating facts.
• The average age of a person who has died from a drug related overdose is 39.
• The cost of the Opioid epidemic from 2001 to 2016 has surpassed 1 Trillion
• The economic cost is over 500 billion per year starting in 2015 according to the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
• There are more than 100,000 emergency room visits for opioid overdoses in the U.S. per year
• The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control estimates that the cost of treating prescription opioids alone is 78.5 Billion per year
• One Study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston found that the average cost of treating an Opioid overdose victim in intensive care units was $92,400 per patient
• Patients with untreated Opioid use disorders tend to incur $19,000 more in healthcare cost annually according to a CEA’s 2011 study
• The U.S. spent nearly $8 Billion on criminal justice related cost due to selling and consuming Opioids which was almost entirely a cost to state and local governments, according to the 2015 National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
• New Hampshire is still losing about 450 people from drug overdoses every year. Although the death rate has stabilized the addiction rate is still growing fast.
•Nationally 100,000 children entered the foster care system because of the Opioid epidemic (about 1/3 of all children entering)
• One infant is born every 15 minutes with withdrawal symptoms after being exposed to Opioids before birth according to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
• In 2017, 460 children were put into foster care in New Hampshire because of family substance abuse. The number of terminated parental rights cases increased 63 percent in 2017 According to WMUR.
• Over 700,000 people in the U.S. have died from 1999 to 2017 from drug overdoses
How do we solve this? I believe can solve it with a 1-year group rehab in a clean, sanitary, secluded shelter, without using medication treatments to stop the cravings, group and individual counseling to continue the fight to stop the cravings with several different approaches such as Cognitive behavioral therapy, Relapse prevention training and educational services from hygiene to college courses. As the rehab continues to bring in new people, the existing group can learn from this experience of new people entering straight from the addiction and comfort them as they start the withdrawal process.
Presently there are over 2 million people addicted to drugs such as Opioids and Heroin in the U.S. and I envision these rehabs to be large.
Should the drug manufactures help pay for this? Absolutely, and money is already coming in from lawsuits. But for now, we need to say yes to a new plan or any plan that will work. The time for talking is over, and the time to take back our country and families is now. And the benefits will be amazing. We will save our loved ones from addiction and death, crime will go way down, health insurance will be cheaper, our national debt will benefit and possibly start to decline, and life in America will be better.
70,000 are dying per year Nationally