White House hopefuls in passionate pleas over addiction
There is one thing Hillary Clinton, the former
first lady, senator and secretary of state,
admits she has learned running for president:
a heroin and painkiller epidemic is ravaging
US communities, and it’s getting worse.
Her Republican rivals know it too.
Several on the 2016 campaign trail have
opened up about their personal
connections to overdose tragedies.
A retired doctor came to see Clinton in
the spring in Keene, New Hampshire
imploring her to do something about
heroin, which has replaced opioid
prescription analgesics as the narcotic of
choice in some US cities and rural areas.
Clinton promised to bring the problem
“out of the shadows.”
In September the Democratic
frontrunner proposed a $10 billion plan
to help the 23 million Americans who
suffer from addiction or substance
abuse, only 10 percent of whom
currently get treatment.
Over the past seven years, more
Americans have died from overdoses
than in traffic accidents, official
statistics show. Overdose deaths topped
46,000 in 2013.
Republican candidates have denounced
the US health care system deficiencies
that allow many who need treatment to
slip through the cracks, and they have
told their own stories of family tragedies
to drive the point home.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cited
a close friend from law school —
successful, handsome, rich — who ended
up addicted to painkillers after suffering
a back injury.
Eight years of hell ensued: the man lost
his wife, job and home, and was
eventually found dead in a motel room
next to empty bottles of vodka and
Percocet, a prescription painkiller which
is a popular target for drug traffickers.
“Somehow, if it’s heroin or cocaine or
alcohol, we say, ‘They decided it, they’re
getting what they deserved,'” Christie
said last week at a New Hampshire town
hall event.
“I’m pro-life,” Christie stressed in an
appeal to conservatives. “And I think
that if you’re pro-life you’ve got to be
pro-life for the whole life, not just the
nine months they’re in the womb.”
A video of Christie’s emotional plea has
gone viral, drawing nearly seven million
views online.
– ‘Horrible disease’ –
Fellow candidate Carly Fiorina, the
former chief executive of Hewlett-
Packard, also made a personal plea for
expanded treatment for addicts, recalling
her stepdaughter’s 2009 death after
years of struggles with alcohol and
prescription pills.
“My husband Frank and I buried a child
to drug addiction,” she said during a
September Republican debate watched
by 23 million viewers.
“We must invest more in the treatment.”
Candidate solutions include a
recognition that addiction is a chronic
mental illness requiring longterm
treatment.
Republican Jeb Bush has also spoken out.
His daughter Noelle was arrested for
prescription fraud in 2002 — while he
was Florida governor and brother
George W. Bush was president.
“It is the most heart-breaking thing in
the world to go through,” Bush said
recently while advocating for expanded
treatment.
Senator Ted Cruz is among the most
skilled orators in the race, but on
Thursday he struggled when describing
how his half-sister, whom he once
dragged out of a crack house, succumbed
to drug and alcohol addiction.
“It’s a horrible disease and I’ve seen it
first hand,” he told CNN.
With prisons filling up with addicts, and
little or no treatment options available to
them, many argue for alternatives to
incarceration.
Texas offers such rehabilitation
programs, while growing numbers of law
enforcement officers nationwide are
equipped with naloxone, an overdose
reversal drug.
Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich,
also a presidential hopeful, signed
emergency legislation in July making the
anti-overdose tool available without a
prescription, though critics say that fails
to address the underlying problems.
– ‘Gateway to heroin’ –
The epidemic is particularly devastating
in rural and poor areas.
“Prescription drugs become a gateway to
heroin,” President Barack Obama said
during an October visit to West Virginia,
the state with the highest rate of
overdose deaths.
He stressed that his health care law
forces insurance companies to cover
addiction treatment, but experts say the
requirement is slow to take hold.
“People often don’t even know where to
start” or where to find quality services,
Penny Mills, chief executive of the
American Society of Addiction Medicine,
told AFP.
She said she was encouraged by the
bipartisan focus Congress is placing on
the issue and welcomed broader public
awareness, but stressed the crisis
extends beyond opioids.
“Far more people die from addiction to
other substances, typically alcohol,” she
said.
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