Encouraging News in Connecticut

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I rise before the House today as the Member from eastern Connecticut having the honor to represent the Second Congressional District to report on some encouraging news on probably one of the most gut-wrenching, disheartening problems that our Nation faces, which is the epidemic of opioid overdoses.

In the State of Connecticut, like other parts of the country, the rise of opioid deaths from 2012 up until 2021, 2022, has been 300 percent.

People are more likely to die from opioid overdoses than they are from motor vehicle accidents, and eastern Connecticut was no exception.

Again, in 2021, the number of opioid deaths in New London County, which takes up the largest portion of eastern Connecticut by population, peaked at 134 deaths.

Starting at that point, people decided it was time to get serious about trying to come up with ways to create more prevention and also remediation and recovery for people suffering from addiction.

In 2022, that number dropped from 134 to 125. A couple days ago, the 2023 numbers were reported, and it dropped to 71 deaths.

This did not happen by itself. It was in collaboration with the community of New London, the New London Overdose Action Team, which was led by Margaret Lancaster from the Ledge Light Health District created in collaboration with the New London Police, the New London EMS, and social services agencies to get more Narcan kits out into the community and to educate people in terms of what to do in these situations, these crisis situations, and it is showing real results.

In Norwich, which is also one of the larger communities that was hard hit, the Norwich Opioid Task Force was created, led by Kate Milde, who is the director of Norwich Human Services, again, in collaboration with the Norwich Police Department, EMS, the youth prevention team, and the Recovery Coach Program, which is led by Michael Doyle from Reliance Health.

The Reliance Recovery Coach Program is a model with trained, street- smart staff that are out in the community street by street, tracking where overdoses have occurred and distributing Narcan kits--500 in 2023, and the number of deaths dropped from 34 to 17 in that community.

Again, I salute Michael and his team who are amazing people doing hard work, saving lives, and getting this country better positioned to deal with this crisis.

Again, I said it was encouraging news. We cannot end our efforts. We cannot stop there. We have more work to do in terms of making sure, through budgets in Washington and in State governments, that these incredible individuals are able to continue to do their work in collaboration with law enforcement and in collaboration with hospitals and EMT professionals to make sure that we save lives, get people into recovery, change lives, and get them up on their feet and contributing to our community.

Madam Speaker, I end by saluting their great work and encouraging them to continue. We are watching you, and we are cheering you on.

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