Issue Position: Opioid Epidemic

Issue Position

Simply put, the dollars we're not putting into treating addicts multiply into dollars we spend prosecuting them. A 2014 state white paper estimated that every dollar invested in treatment with the appropriate level of care and length-of- stay, translates into a $7 return to the state treasurer in reduced criminal justice costs. Yet our state's funding level for opioid and addiction treatment is only 14 percent of what it needs to be. As your state representative, Tim O'Neal will fight to properly fund treatment for people addicted to opioids. And he'll fight to restore the cabinet-level Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs which Gov. Tom Wolf attempted to gut last year. Tim knows that we need to treat the opioid epidemic as a public health crisis to be handled by professionals, not handed over to a desk at PEMA, an agency designed to deal with floods and snowstorms.

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