Issue Position: Prioritizing the Opioid Epidemic

Issue Position

I have spent many years working with addicts in a treatment setting and I am currently involved with Natives against Heroin. I have first-hand experience with our community's struggle with addiction and the devastating effect opioids have on American society. When I enter office as 8th Congressional District Representative, I will be putting a priority on the war against opioids.

Sixty-four thousand Americans died from a drug-overdose in 2016 alone. Forty-two thousand of those deaths were caused by opioids. In just that one year, more Americans were taken by overdose than by 17 years of the Vietnam War. Opioid addiction is now the leading cause of death in people under the age of 50.

In order to wage a war on opioid abuse; we must first take an honest look at what causes the disease of addiction. Addiction is a disease that centers in the brain. Those afflicted with addiction needs to be treated as we would treat people with any other disease, in clinical settings. While I do not dismiss the fact that addicts' behaviors inflict great harm on our communities, these behaviors need to be dealt with as a symptom of the disease. I have heard many experts liken addiction as an allergy to drugs and alcohol. What happens, when people with the disease of addiction use drugs and/or alcohol, is the brain's survival instincts gets hijacked. The brain now believes that the way to survive the next few min is only possible with the drug. The addict will do whatever is necessary, as their brain is telling them, to survive. These behaviors bring crushing guilt and shame to addicts. Drug use, may then, also be used to numb the addict to these feelings as well. It is a vicious cycle for those afflicted with addiction.

We have entire communities dealing with the problem of addiction and we need healing for entire communities. Imagine, if you will, a forest that use to be beautiful and green, but something is going wrong in that forest and the trees are getting sick and dying. So you take one of the trees, dig it up and move it to a new healthy place. You spend the time to take care of that tree and nurse it back to health. Then when that tree is again flourishing and healthy you dig it back up. You take it back to where you originally dug it up. You replant it back in the sick forest. Can you then be surprised when you begin to see the tree get sick again. Our communities are the sick forest. It does us no good to only treat individual addicts and send them back to places that are still sick. We need resources to go to entire communities to be able to solve our opioid problems.

For far too long we have allowed the criminal justice system to deal with the problem of addiction and they have failed. It's not the fault of that system and they are not equipped to deal with this problem any more than we would send diabetics into the criminal justice system to seek help for their disease. We have spent too much money and waisted too much time already. Addicts need to be treated as the sick people they are in treatment settings. Treating addiction in the treatment setting would save us more than half of what it would cost to incarcerate addicts.

Pharmaceutical companies have devastated our communities with the introduction of opioids into the health care system. Four out of 5 heroin addictions start addiction to opioid prescription painkillers. Opioids are not the only way to treat chronic pain. They are being pushed by pharmaceutical companies, the insurance industry, and the medical establishment. To the detriment of our people, families and our society.

Many alternative methods of addressing chronic pain are not even covered by insurance companies. We need to develop policies that will reduce the grip this epidemic has on our communities; incentivize alternatives in the health care system; fund research on treating the chronic pain that currently afflicts 100 million Americans, and find alternative options offered by single-payer health care programs.

Opioids are carelessly prescribed. They are highly addictive substances. Their use is strongly correlated with future heroin addiction and they present an alarming risk of overdose. St. Louis County has the highest risk of overdose per capita of any county in this state. The spirit of addiction has taken hold in our families and among our friends and co-workers. We need to help the victims with a national plan for prevention and recovery and we need to hold Big Pharma responsible.

As your Congressman, I will prioritize funding top-notch substance abuse programs focused on prevention, treatment, relapse prevention, and well-regulated Methadone treatment where Methadone is called for. We need to expand support for those struggling with addiction, meet their specific needs culturally and individually, provide funding for additional services, and make sure programs are assessable to all communities. It's important that federal funds make it down to the grassroots movements--programs working side-by-side with people in the midst of addiction. It's also essential to expand culturally specific programs and address disparities and social inequities in our communities.

Compared to non-people of color, Native Americans are 5 times more likely to die of an overdose. African Americans are twice as likely. Intergenerational trauma and inequities in education, income, and employment feed the likeliness of addiction. By building up all of our communities in the spirit of equality and addressing the issues of historical trauma, we can help address some of these underlying issues.

Our society is addicted--to punishment. Addiction is a disease. It is a public health issue. The stigma attached to chemical dependency needs to change, like the stigma of mental illness, the disease of addiction needs to be treated as a public health issue, affecting people of all ages, genders, races and socio-economic background. The shame and stigma must be lifted and we must openly embrace members of our community who are struggling.

In Minnesota, instances of parental drug use accounted for in the removal of children from their homes rose from 14% in 2012 to 25% in 2016. It is now the most common reason for removal of children from their homes. Upon entering the system, the chances of parents losing their parental rights is high. Federal law sets a timeline for the parents to get clean and comply with court orders. We need to explore alternatives to arrest and incarceration. We need to expand programs that unite and heal families, rather than breaking them up, rather than feeding cycles of trauma. We need safe spaces where people can reach out for help with addiction, with no fear of criminal consequences and without losing their children.

When I am elected as 8th Congressional District Representative, I will prioritize bettering our communities by continuing to fight the war on this opioid epidemic. It has been declared a national public health emergency, and it needs to be treated as one. The stands I take on the issues important to the 8th Congressional District lead the way towards communities better structured for well-being. Inequities and inequalities have always lead to instabilities in societies. Therefore, we need to get rid of the inequities and the inequalities that have led to disparities in our society.

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