Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. President , mr. Speaker, honorable members of the Supreme Court, members of the state legislature and my cabinet, former governors, family and friends, this is the seventh time that i have had the honor step before this legislature and the people of new jersey to perform one of my duties as governor. Article 5, section 1, paragraph 12 of our constitution. Creates the requirement for the governor to report on the state of the state. As the one person independently elected by all new jersey State Government, the governor is the only person truly able to give this report. For me, service to the people of this state has been my central responsibility every day of my life for the last 15 years. First as United States attorney. And now as governor. As i enter my eighth year as governor, it is my honor and privilege to report on the state of the state that i call home for me and for my family. The state of the state is good. Having boldly dealt with so many of the longterm problems we inherited in 2010, having an economy which continues to grow, and now ready to use 2017 to confront problems that still need solving. I stand here today prepared to give every ounce of energy i have to make 2017 a year where we solve more big problems for the citizens of new jersey. So lets start with the central issues of our economy. Since we entered office seven years ago in the depths of the recession, new jersey has created 278,000 new private sector jobs. We now have had seven consecutive years of private sector job growth, and all of the jobs lost during the Great Recession have now been recovered by the people of the state of new jersey. At the same time, we have kept our promise to reverse the outlandish growth of government which was created in the decade before our arrival. We have eliminated more than 10,000 government jobs at the state level, and over 21,000 more government jobs at the county and local government level through our effective property tax cap. That is 31,000 government jobs eliminated in just seven years. We promised a smaller government, and, ladies and gentlemen, we have delivered. And let me remind you that in State Government, all of this was done without any layoffs. It was all done through effective management and fiscal discipline with the peoples money. Existing home sales which is always a good barometer of the health of a states economy rose 15 in 2016. Home sales are growing and new jersey is growing with them. So as a result, look at whats happened to the states unemployment rate. At 9. 8 when we entered office, now 5 . Nearly cut in half. 445,000 New Jerseyans were out of work when we came to trenton seven years ago. 50 fewer are unemployed today. Now while the pundits and prognosticators always see is glat as half empty, for new jersey faps out of work in 2010 the glass is much fuller, much, much fuller as we enter 2017 and all of us collectively should be proud of the work we have done to make it so for them. Weve also restored responsible budgeting back to new jersey government. Think about this. Discretionary spending by State Government is 2. 3 billion less in actual dollars today than it was nine years ago. Heres what that means. Nearly every additional dollar we have collected in taxes this administration has dedicated to deal with our historic problems pension payments, Health Insurance premiums, and debt service. This year, we will make a 1. 9 billion payment to the pension fund. That is the largest singleyear pension payment made in state history. And that will bring our total payments to the Pension System to 6. 3 billion, and that is twice as much as governors whitman, de francehsco, and corzine combined. This administration has been far and away by numbers the most generous in the Pension System in the last 23 years, and we are proud to have stepped up to our responsibility. Now despite the fact that we have not been able to pay every penny we had hoped to after our landmark 2011 reforms, those reforms have been working. The Supreme Court supported our reforms despite a failed and expensive assault on those reforms by the Public Sector unions. And we have done more to restore solvency to this broken system than any recent group of leaders in this city. All of us together. Now theres more to do, and i will present more ideas to finish the job we started with pension reform in 2011 when i present you with my 2018 budget next month. But until then, we should acknowledge and be proud of the fact that we have passed reforms that will save the Pension System nearly 120 billion over 30 years and that we have doubled the states contribution to the system during our term over what was paid into it in the last 16 years before we arrived. Thats progress. And that will be more to come in february. Now finally, 2017 will be the first year since 1996 that new jersey citizens will see broadbased tax cuts. [ applause ] thats right. For the first time in over 20 years New Jerseyans will actually see taxes go down this year. This was a partisan fight for six years. As my republican colleagues and i regularly called for tax cuts, our democratic colleagues regularly said, no. I want to thank my, friends in this chamber for standing strong for six years so that these tax cuts could finally become a reality in year seven. Now to my democratic friends in this chamber, i want to thank you you, too, for making 2017 a year when New Jerseyans can finally get tax relief. But, by the way, it is tax relief we can all be really proud of. In 2017 our sales tax will be cut for the first time in decades, and even better news, it will be cut again on january 1st, 2018. 520 million in relief for every New Jerseyans who pays a sales tax. That means for every new jerseyan living here today. In 2017 the working poor in new jersey will get even more assistance to raise their families. When we entered office the earned income tax credit was 25 . In 2015, we increased the credit to 30 . And last year, we increased it again effective january 1st to 35 . That now puts us in the top 10 of all states in providing this tax relief to the working poor and we should be proud that we are helping families who are already helping themselves. [ applause ] 2017 is going to be even a better year for seniors on a fixed income. Were going to begin to gain even more income for retirement. In four years seniors can make 100,000 in Retirement Income and pay no state income taxes at all. This is going to help our seniors stay in our state. Once they stay, to live an even better life. This is going to keep families together, it is going to reward seniors who have planned responsibly for their own retirement. Now 2017, the death tax has been put on life support and by 2018, the death tax in new jersey will be officially dead itself. [ applause ] youve all heard the stories, people often flee our state in their senior years because they tax them to death while they live here, and then to add to the burden and indignity, we tax them again more than any other state after they die. People will now be able to choose new jersey rather than one of the other 49 states in the union, in their senior years because we will stop smoking. Lets take a moment to have some silence prayer for my friend and new jerseys friend, pastor joe carter of new baptist church. Hell be tended to and lets just momently be silent and think of joe and make sure he comes through it okay. All right. New jersey estate tax has risen from a 675,000 exclusion to a 2 million exclusion on january 1st. And on january 1st, 2018, new jersey will no longer have an estate tax at all. Now, this is going to be Game Changing tax reform for new jerseys economy, for our families, and for the Small Businesses they want to pass on to their family. Finally, in 2017, our veterans will be honored for their service in our military by our tax code. New jersey veterans who are honorably discharged from service will get their own personal exemption from state income taxes. Their distinguished service to our nation deserves nothing less. So imagine that, republicans and democrats coming together to lower taxes for all New Jerseyans in 2017. It took seven years to get it done, but we should be proud that taxpayers will get to keep more of their own money in 2017 than they did in 2016. [ applause ] now as people sit and listen to a state of the state speech, they often wonder, how many of the goals and aspirations that a governor details actually get accomplished . Good question. So lets review the goals that we set in 2016 in this speech and what were able to accomplish together in the year since. In 2016 i called on the legislature to finally eliminate the death tax in new jersey. As we just talked about, we did it together. In 2016, we acknowledged something at least many of us did that our cities need even more service from Charter Schools. Were already providing extraordinary opportunities to students and their families for a brighter future, and thats why families are still on waiting lists in our major cities to get into a quality charter school. It is not a political decision by them. It is a decision based upon the quality of life for their children and their aspirations for their future. Now we promised to loosen regulations in the speech last year that are choking the growth and expansion of Charter Schools, most particularly in our urban centers. This past week the state board of education advanced efforts to make Charter Schools in new jersey even more effective by allowing them to it be even more innovative. 2016, we promised a 100 million increase in funding for Mental Health and Substance Abuse treatment. Now in this area, we exceeded our promise by adding 127 million to increase access to these vital Human Services for the most vulnerable in ourp state. 2016 we promgsed to open the First Certified drug abuse Treatment Facility for new Jersey Prison inmates in state history. This spring a 696bed facility will open, and every inmate who enters it will receive First Class Drug and alcohol abuse treatment before they leave prison and go back on the streets to try to recover their life. In 2016 we spoke about our successful recovery coach program, and in 2015 we had it operating in five counties. Was so successful that we promised to more than double than in 2016 to 11 of our counties. Whats the program. To remind you, the program puts counselors in hospital Emergency Rooms to help people begin the road to recovery in a way that gives them an even greater chance of success from the minute theyre getting ready to leave the emergency room. We promised greater opportunity for recovery addicts to reclaim their lives, and now in more than half of new jerseys counties, just as we promised, recovery coaches are doing just that in Emergency Rooms. [ applause ] now those were the five central promises of the 2016 state of the state speech. Im proud to say that on each and every one of them we delivered. So, listen a little more carefully this time. We might actually do what we say were going to do. Listen to the speech and people in new jersey should listen also. I hope theyll have the same level of confidence that we will achieve the goals we set today the way we did in 2016. There are so many issues that i could talk about today and look back on with pride. There are so many future issues that i could talk about today and look to with a sense of urgency. And there are so many stories from the last year that i could relate to you today in this speech with a true sense of wonder. But im not going to do that today. For that, i guess youre all just going to have to wait for the book. [ laughter ] [ applause ] and wait. And wait. And wait. But seriously. Im not going to do it today because our state faces a crisis which is more urgent to new jerseys families than any other issue we could confront. A crisis which is destroying families. One that is ripping the very fabric of our state apart. It is the crisis of drug addiction. On december 21st, we held a candlelight vigil on the steps of this historic building. Over 750 people from all over the state attended to show their solidarity with our efforts and their concern for their fellow citizens. Now in the group that night was pam garazzo. She is an employee of the state department of education. Now pam has been a passionate drug awareness and prevention advocate for years. For her, her reasons are personal. Her son, carlos, has battled addiction since he was 16 years old. During his periods of sobriety, carlos was amazing. He volunteered his time running support groups for fellow addicts, at the same time he maintained and thrived at a successful job. He spent time with his family and his friends and he brought all them together for this cause. And they fought his addiction with him as a family. Pam came to the vigil on december 21st to jrejoice in carlos latest 10 1 2 months of uninterrupted sobriety. And she came there that night to celebrate the gifts that she said that sobriety had brought to her son and to their family. Two days later, on december 23rd, carlos relapsed, and he was found in his mothers car dead at 23 years old from a heroin overdose. Today mary pat and i extend our deepest sympathy to pam for her enormous loss and we thank her for her advocate for and in support of other families whose lives have been ravaged by this awful disease. Today, what i am doing today, is for people like pam. Together we will save lives around by doing so, honor the lives of those we have lost, like her dear son, carlos, through the pain of her enormous loss. Pam still has the strength and the courage just weeks later to be here today with her husband. We owe her not only our sympathy, but we owe her our gratitude for her commitment to this cause and to the others who suffer from it in new jersey. [ applause ] thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of new jersey, this is the face of the epidemic of addiction that is ravaging our state and its people. In fact, it is ravaging our entire country. Very few people want to talk about it. We want to continue to pretend that it is isolated to one class of people or one type of family in our state. We want to continue to take the same approaches weve taken for 30 years or more, to jail those who have this disease. We want to close our eyes and hope this scourge passes by our own home, if we just hope and pray hard enough to make it so. Well, hoping and praying alone will not make it better. Arresting, jailing, stigmatizing the victims will not make it better. Our friends are dying. Our neighbors are dyinging. Our coworkers are dying. Our children are dying. Every day. In numbers we can no long i afford to ignore. I am the leader of this state. I have been the leader of this state for the last 2,546 days, and i will be its leader for the next 373 days. And i have been committed to this every day of my governorship. And today i say to each and everyone of you, i need you to join me and feel the same sense of urgency to save lives now. [ applause ] let me be clear to ever ever new jerseyan both in this chamber and in all 21 of our counties. Drug addiction is a disease. A disease. It is not a moral failing. And it is a disease that can be treated. And by treating the disease with the methods we know, and treating its victims with understanding and compassion, we have a chance to save lives. Never forget, each of those lives are an individual gift from god. There can be no calling more clear, no matter your faith, than the calling to save lives. Now we have taken some admirable steps over the last couple of years and we have made some prodprepr progress but it is clearly not enough. I can see it by watching the grow is cost to our budgets. I can feel it by looking into the eyes of too many loved ones who have lost someone so close and so dear that you can actually see their hearts breaking. Beyond the human cost, which is incalculable, there is a real lost to every part of life in new jersey. So you come to this chamber because you care about children . Well, this is affecting our education system. Children coming to school high or tortured by a drug culture at home cannot learn. You came to this chamber because you care about improving the health care system. Great. It is affecting the medical community. The cost of this epidemic is putting a burden on our system which we will not be able to bear in the years to come. So you came here because youre concerned about law and order and saved in the streets. Thats great. But this is affecting how we fight crime. Police are in danger every day. Citizens are at risk on the streets and on the roads, and drug addiction cause is behavior that Law Enforcement simply cannot handle. You are here about economy and the jobs and thats what brought you here . Well, believe me, it is affecting the Financial Security of every person it touches. Jobs lost, savings wasted. Potential ruined. All by a culture of addiction. None of that adds to our economy. Just stalls it. Lets say you came here today because you care most about your own family. Well, let me tell you this. Only through the grace of god has it not touched your family already. You are among the lucky ones and your luck could run out at any moment. This administration has done more than any in new jersey history on the issue of addiction and were proud of it. Were proud of what weve done, but its not been enough. We have to do more. Drug Overdose Deaths in new jersey escalated by nearly 22 between 2014 and 15. Deaths escalated by 22 , largely due to opopioids. There was a 30 increase in heroin deaths over the previous year, and trip many the number of deaths causes by the synthetic opioid fentanyl which is 50 times more potent than heroin. Nearly 1,600 people lost their lives to a Drug Overdose in new jersey in 2015. 1,600. So you are saying, whats that really mean . Let me give you some perspective. For 2015, those 1,600 is four times the number of murders in new jersey four times the number of murders and three times more the number of People Killed in automobile accidents in the state for the same years. Deaths from heroin alone surpassed deaths in the United States by firearm homicides. Just heroin. And the fatalities in new jersey in 2015 would have been even greater when you factor in the number of people whose lives were saved after receiving the overdose reversal medication narcan. It was this administration that made narcan available in every county. We also provided training for Law Enforcement and emts in how to safely use it to save peoples lives. Hows it worked . How about this . We had 10,000 narcan deployments in 2016 alone. Thats 10,000 lives that could have been lost without narcan. Add that to the 1,600 victims who didnt make it . That means we could have lost more than 10,000 lives without our aggressive action on narcan. Thats absolutely unthinkable. But likely to have happened if we had not acted boldly. And then there are the countless lives of those who were addicted but in the shadows. They hadnt been captured by a statistic yet, but we know theyre there and those are the ones we need to reach out to before it is too late. Think about this, everybody. According to the Surgeon General, an american dies every 19 minutes from an overdose of heroin or opioid painkillers. Every 19 minutes. That means while were in this chamber, three americans will die of an overdose. And the next hour, and the next hour, and the next hour. Nearly 50,000 people died in 2014 across the country of a Drug Overdose. And in that same report the Surgeon General tells us that the age of first use of alcohol or any other illicit drug vastly increases the rate of addiction. So in other words, this is what im saying. The earlier you try any illicit drug, the greater the risk of addiction to other drugs. I want all the advocates of legalizing Recreational Marijuana to listen to those numbers. If you try any drug by the age of 13, you have a 70 chance according to the Surgeon General of developing addiction to another drug within seven years. Try an illicit drug at the age of 13, 7 out of 10 of them will be addicted to another drug by the time they are 20. I hope, i pray, that this will give pause to those that are blindly pushing ahead to legalize another illicit drug in our state for tax revenue or by falsely saying it will cause no harm. The statistics prove you wrong. Dead wrong. 1 in 12 High School Seniors report that they currently use vicodin. 1 in 20 currently report they use oxycontin. 467,000 children between the ages of 12 and 17 use prescription pain medication. 12 and 17. And 168,000 of those are addicted to pain medication. The prescribing rates for these drugs to this age group has doubled in the last 13 years. Use of these drugs often leads to abuse of, and addiction to, heroin, as a cheaper and more readily available alternative. These are just numbers. Go behind the numbers, everyone. Think about it. These are real people. Think about the 17yearold captain of the High School Football team who hurts his knee and then gets objection oxycont. I didnt come here just to identify the problem. I want to lay out to you now a comprehensive plan to fight this fight more aggressively because there is nothing more important i can do with my last 373 days as governor than this. Lets work to save lives together and let us start together today. First lets deal with the basics. If you dont know where to find help, you cant get help for your family. We need to make treatment easier to locate and more accessible to families when they are in crisis. Today our administration is launching a onestop website and a hotline to make it easier to access treatment. The website will put addiction information in one place and help eliminate the question families often face when seeking help. Where do i go . Who do i turn to . Its going to enhance Public Awareness regarding treatment options. It is going to provide insurance guidance. It is going to identify locations of state licensed rehab facilities for children and adults and share information on employment support programs for those who have entered recovery. Website will include updates on programs by agencies but also provide options as well. One website, one phone number to guide people through what can be a really daunting bureaucracy, especially by those paralyzed by crisis. We cannot reach in need if the path to help is confusing. We will launch an aggressive Public Relations campaign to inform every family in need where they can go for help. Starting today, dial 1844reachnj. Or go to the web at reachnj. Gov. Thats the one place families will be able to go to get all this information. Next in addition to providing better information access, last year we increased funding for treatment, as i said before, by more than 127 million for Behavioral Health providers. By will propose that funding again for the next years budget. So were making progress on expanding capacity through that investment. But we need to do even more. Found this out recently. Current regulations do not allow us to treat 18 and 19 yearolds as children in our state system. Whats this do. It leaves us with empty treatment beds for our youth and resulting overcrowding in treatment beds for people who are 18 years of age or older. Well, i dont believe we have the luxury of allowing any treatment beds in the state to remain empty. Therefore i am going to change this rule. Well invest an additional 12 million to open more beds for this very vulnerable population. This expansion will be led by commissioner make and the department of children and families and it is going to allow their licensed residential facilities to treat 18 and 19 yearolds rather than stop at 17. What this will do is open another 200 beds to hundreds of young people who are seeking help. We have to do everything we can to keep our children off of waiting lists and get them on to treatment. Because the wait may be more than they can bear. [ applause ] next, im directing the commissioner of education harrington to develop new specific curriculum in every school on opioids. We will implement a new robust curriculum tailored to every age group. Message will be simple and direct and start in kindergarten. The medicine in mom and dads medicine cabinet is not safe for you just because a doctor gave it to them. Now well also expand commissioner lannigans project pride run by the department of corrections. It brings minimum security prisoners to middle schools and high schools to share how drug abuse led them to addiction and to prison. Next, we need to acknowledge that the path to recovery is a lifelong one. We have many young people who enter our colleges and universities already having received treatment for addiction. How can we possibly drop them into the lifechanging Pressure Cooker that college is for any student without the appropriate atmosphere of support . So in order to if ufurther new jerseys students who have been caught in the addiction epidemic, we will be markedly increasing funding fourfold for College Housing programs set up for students in recovery. Theyre called recovery dorms and they are a lifeline for students who want to succeed in the classroom and continue to succeed in their recovery as they learn. These housing programs provide a community for students in need of counseling and additional supports while dealing with the pressure of college. Attending college for any child can be challenging, but it can be particularly difficult for students who are already in recovery. You know the culture. Many of us experienced it. Even though it may seem too long ago to remember. The culture of partying and other things that go on on campus that are a part of campus life. Students who are living on campus dealing with recovery may be exposed to added temptations in their dorms that they just are not equipped to deal with. Safe havens such as recovery dorms are critical in our fight against addiction which is a lifelong battle for them to maintain their sobriety. Next, the effort to support those who exit treatment and are in recovery cannot stop with the college campus. Sober living homes need to be available throughout the state to give opportunities to those in recovery to live in a supportive setting during that really delicate early period of recovery. Thats why ive been working with senator vitali to create a more flexible environment that encourages cooperative, Sober Living Homes in new jersey. We need to ease the overly restrictive statutory, regulatory and code environment for residences that provide support and substancefree housing in our communities. [ applause ] heres Something Else that needs to be said. We need to welcome these supportive living arrangements into our own neighborhoods. If we want to have a chance to defeat this epidemic, we cannot have a prejudicial attitude towards these homes in any of our 565 municipalities. They serve a very beneficial use and purpose for our state. I want you to remember this. Today the nonviolent recovering person in that home in your neighborhood may be a stranger. Tomorrow it may be your own child. These residences provide yet another safe haven to help those in recovery get back on their feet and back into society sober and productive. We cant continue to preach the benefits of treatment, then fail those in recovery by denying them the access to a safe and supportive home while they get in to recovery. Now, the person who brought these ideas to me is another example of how this crisis can touch any family and how those who are in recovery can truly change lives if we give them the tools to help them help themselves. First met a. J. When he was 11 years old. Actually attended his bar mitzvah. When a. J. Graduated from the university of pittsburgh, i hired him to work as a member of my advance team in the governors office. I was really proud to have a young man that i had known that long as a member of my team. But a. J. Had a problem, and he had a secret. He dabbled with alcohol in high school and college, then he stumbled on to prescription painkillers. By the age of 19, painkillers and alcohol were a regular part of his life. By the time he came to work for me, he had become a fullblown heroin addict. Told me he would travel to north camden on his way to the state capital to work for me to bay his heroin for the day. Luckily a. J. Got caught by a family friend buying drugs, and he then went into a 28day program. But, as often happens, a. J. Found his way around the system. He left the facility. He wound up living on the streets. A. J. Watched a close friend die from his addiction. A. J. Watched another friend go to jail. And he knew there were only two choices left for him to tie or to have the strength to get sober. After much hard work, and now having a few years of sobriety, a. J. Called me and asked to come see me at the state house. He told me he was coming to make amends for the ways he felt he had disgraced the office of the governor by his conduct and how he felt he had betrayed our friendship. I asked a. J. How he had done it and how i could use his experience to help others. A. J. Is the architect of the sober living reforms i just outlined based on his experience and the experience of others he watched. Whats happening now . A. J. Is opening a Substance Abuse Treatment Center in february in new jersey. The Victory Bay Recovery Center in laurel springs. This place is going to be just 15 minutes from where a. J. Grew up and where he fell victim to addiction. A. J. Is going to continue to change and save lives. Recently he told me that people think that being an addict is a death sentence or an unbearable burden. He told me he disagrees. He says hes grateful, grateful to be in recovery, and he believes the fulfillment and the joy that helping others brings to his life will keep him from relapsing and using drugs again. So who is a. J. . He is a. J. Solomon, the son of bpu commissioner Diane Solomon and new jersey Supreme Court associate justice lee solomon. Two extraordinary citizens. Two incredible parents. You see, a. J. s story is not an uncommon story. It just has an uncommon ending. A. J. Cant wait to see how the next chapters of his life unfold, and neither can i and im confident neither can his mom or dad. We love you, a. J. Im thrilled how youve chosen to spend the rest of your life. [ applause ] what i know is going to be a long and productive life, my friend. Long and productive one. Next, whether leaving a Treatment Center to a sober living home or leaving prison after having received treatment for the disease that led you to a life of crime, the road to recovery is made even longer around the road to relapse even shorter if the person in recovery cannot find a job. Thats why i advocated for reforms we made to the bail system effective just ten days ago. We now have a criminal Justice System that will permit our judges to keep the truly dangerous sociopath behind bars but will release those nonviolent offenders if only remained in jail because they are poor and end the predator bail system thats lobbyists roaming these halls advocating to keep people behind bars unless their clients are permitted to profit from their release. We ended this antiquated system in a bipartisan effort and starting this year, all new jersey will benefit from our efforts. We know the greatest predictor of personal success in every way is a job. Employment is a longterm factor towards reducing recidivism. Thanks to our bipartisan efforts with senator cunningham, we have banned the box which was a barrier to employment and that is now over in new jersey. But as we all know, there are more barriers. Which is why well be working with Coke Industries and their general counsel, mark holden, to work collaboratively with new jerseybased companies to challenge ourselves and longaccepted exclusions for employment of the formerly incarcerated. This march we will host an Employment Opportunity summit with the business, legal and Human Resource executives all across new jersey to ensure that new jerseys at the forefront of helping people get back to work and become productive citizens and taxpayers. Thats going to help those who have been incarcerated, who have been addicted and left behind to have an opportunity to reclaim their lives and not go backwards to addiction and to jail. [ applause ] next we must honestly confront the economic barriers to receiving treatment for addiction. This is important. You see, the wealthy in our society have few, if any, economic barriers to treatment. They have the financial means to pay whatever the costs are to get treatment for their loved ones. And, through our efforts over the last three years, we have eliminated many of the barriers for the poor to receive treatment as well. When i expanded Medicaid Eligibility in new jersey by executive order in 2013, it created a sea change in the availability of drug treatment for the poor in new jersey. How about this . In 2016, 14,357 medicaid recipients are actively receiving drug addiction treatment. This represents a fivefold increase over 2013 before we expanded medicaid. A fivefold increase of drug abuse treatment for the poor in new jersey. Now, do the reforms we advocated, by the way, the cost per recipient is also down since 13 by 7. 7 . Were doing more of it and were doing it at a better cost. So, if the rich are always going to be able to pay for treatment and the poor now have much greater access to it because of medicaid expansion, who has the biggest economic barriers to drug abuse treatment . It is the working men and women of the middle class of new jersey. Not wealthy enough to pay privately, too high an income to qualify for even expanded medicaid. They are dependent on a Health Insurance industry that too often finds a way to say no. Well, as a guy had grew up in a middle class new jersey family, i thats unacceptable. Whether your child lives or dies should not be the subject of a denial letter from an Insurance Company. [ applause ] on behalf of our middle class being attacked by the double whammy of the addiction crisis and being denied coverage i demand we end this today together. So im going to call on the same people that i call on every time i have a tough problem to fix in this city. Im calling on Senate President sweeney and speaker pereta to be the sponsors of a new law to mandate that no citizen with Health Insurance can be denied coverage for the First Six Months of inpatient or outpatient drug rehabilitation treatment. [ applause ] lets face it. No family puts their loved one into inpatient drug treatment unless it is already absolutely necessary. Unless every other alternative has been tried. Rather than support and compassion and coverage theyre too often met with questioning and red tape and denial who happily take their premiums at the same time. To more reapprovals, no more medical necessity reviews prior to admission by an Insurance Company bureaucrat, no more denials that can cost lives. Treatment first, hope first, denials last. [ applause ] together we can end the Insurance Company run around and i challenge you to pass this law in the next 30 days. 30 days. And i will sign it in return on the day you land it on my desk. Together we can save lives immediately by doing this. Immediately. Understand middle class families are living the nightmare of addiction of a loved one. They dont deserve the double dose of ago any. Denial by an Insurance Company which leads to the death of a loved one. We have to end it, lets end it in the next 30 days. Lets get to work on that. [ applause ] next im going announcing additional 5 million for the statewide expansion of a Successful Pilot program we started on ped at trick Behavioral Health. This is what the program does. It provides hubs with a psychiatrist on call for pediatricians. The participating pediatricians receiving training on how to screen our children for Substance Abuse issues. The program then provides an immediate connection to a specialist while the parents and the child are in the pediatricians office over the phone and in the most urgent cases a facetoface consultation is available within hours on the very same day. No longer weeks of waiting for a specialist when we know that hours can make a difference between life and death. Next, we have to step up prevention efforts in all corners of the state. We know that the majority of heroin addicts first become addicted through the use of prescription open poids, four out of five. According to the American Society of addiction medicine, four out of those five users become addicts like that by misusing prescription painkillers. As a result today i am directing attorney general purino to use emergency rule making to limit the supply of op poid pain medications that physicians, dentist and other licenses Health Care Providers subscribe to patients presenting with acute pain. [ applause ] that provide up to a 30 day supply. First prescription. 30 days supply. This is dangerous. Its iladvised and it is absolutely unnecessary in a state like ours. We know addiction can occur within days. We must work against potential addiction and overdose by limiting the supply. I want to limit it to five days that can be obtained at the outset of treatment. Five days, prescribers would then be required under the new rules i am directing attorney general to put out to consult with the patient, to assess their need again and only then to provide further authorization for additional quantities. Think about this everybody. According to the cdc in 2012, Health Care Providers in this country in that one year wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid main medication enough for every adult in the United States to have their own bottle of pills. Opioid prescriptions increased 7 in the five years preceding that with opioid prescribing rates increasing more in Family Practice and general practice than internal medicine. Its everywhere. This trend must be curved. [ applause ] this blanket 30 day prescription window is excessive and the ability of prescribers to order a month worth of powerful medication is contributing to this crisis in a significant way. Limiting the supply of this medication is just one step to prevent addiction before it starts. If necessary, attorney general should open an investigation of the prescribing practices of our medical community and their interaction with the Industry Manufacturing these drugs, profit by physicians or the pharmaceutical industry must never be a rashnal for contributing to the death of our citizens by overprescribing these drugs. Not ever. [ applause ] our battle against the plague of addiction has been leaders who know that personal pain demands both a willingness to surrender to grace. I created the face Addiction Task force in the private sector. Chaired by former governor jim mcgriefvy and our friend pastor joe carter of New Hope Baptist Church in newark. I asked him to keep these issues front and center to me and to the prevention, treatment, recovery, helping people as they leave rehab or incarceration, supporting individuals in recovery with housing and health care and employment. They are Outstanding New jerseyions who have answered the call from this governor and their fellow citizens to serve families in desperate needs and to save lives. Joe has all our prayers right now as he always does and he and the governor have my insear thanks and i am confident that they have yours as well. Thank you, governor. [ applause ] the nature of the crisis makes it obvious i cant do it alone so im creating the Governors Task force on drug abuse control which will by working with all areas of State Government to fight this complex problem together. How complex is this within government . Within the Attorney Generals Office alone multiple agencies have a role to play in the effort to turn our narcotics trafficking, drug diversion, drug abuse and drug addiction, add to that the departments of education, Health Correction and Human Services, have crucial roles to play in this and so our response must utilize every tool available as well as those at the federal level in order to bring all we have to this fight. This task force will spearhead a multipronged, multiagency attack on the addiction crisis. As chairman, im naming my former chief council and current Schools Development authority ceo charlie mckenna. His background gives him the knowledge of every corner of State Government. His experience has a federal prosecutor gives him an understanding on the role of enforcement. His history as the head of Homeland Security zbifz him an appreciation of how this crisis threatens our safety and his success at the school Development Authority in actually building schools on time and on budget has shown everyone that he knows how to solve seeming intractable problems. I thank charlie for his willingness to take on this additional role and i have confidence that he will lead with courage. Thank you, charlie. [ applause ] finally we need some help from our federal partners to address this crisis and i finally have a phone number. We need the federal government to remove outdated barriers to Substance Abuse care that limit access to the neediness. Federal Medicaid Funds cannot currently be used. Imagine this, federal Medicaid Fund where the match is 5050 on Everything Else cant be used for people who are receiving inpatient Substance Abuse treatment in a facility if that facility has more than 16 beds. The feds call these facilities snuts of mental disease and therefore we dont get any federal money and we can only use state funds for this type of treatment. This is ridiculous and its ante kwated thinking. If we move this barrier we could double the number of medicaid beds available for drug abuse treatment in new jersey so i am directing commissioner conley to call upon the new cms administrator, who is a state innovator from indiana and someone who i work closely with during the trump transition to remove this roadblock to care and im calling upon our congressional delegation to lead this fight in congress as well. Eligibility for drug treatment should not be determined by how many beds are in the facility where you seek treatment. So, this is the christie plan to attack the drug epidemic in our state. And i am ready to work with and listen to anyone with more ideas on how to address this issue. Im willing to accept ideas from the corner of the state, from any Political Party or any level of government. Heres what im absolutely unwilling to accept, inaction. I will not have the blood of addicted new jerseyions on my hands because we waited to act. I will not willingly watch another 1,600 of our citizens die and watch their families mourn and suffer. We cannot waste another minute of our time in leadership in this town on the next partisan fuel fake scandal while our friends are dieing. We cannot permit the worst partisans in this town to lead the discussions toward politically motivated, media sense salnalized nonsense. If we dont reject this conduct by the loudest few, we will be paralyzed by the selfinterested actors who care more about the attack of the day than about truly attacking the problems that effect real new jersey families. Our fellow citizens who are facing the disease of addiction do not deserve to be stigmatized. They do not deserved to be locked up in jail purely due to their disease. They do not deserve to be living on the streets and they do not deserve to be going without necessary treatment or medication because they slipped through the cracks of our complex and confusing system. [ applause ] they do not deserve a life without hope and they do not deserve this fate. They are our husbands and wives. They are our brothers and sisters. They are our sons and daughters. We have the capacity to give them the tools they need to recover and it would be a sin for us to fail to do so. This is the single most important issue to every new jersey family touched by this and perhaps the most important issue ill have the chance to address while im governor. During our campaign for president , it was often said that we were the loudest voice discussing this challenge for our nation. Now, as i stand in new jersey in my final years as governor, i want us to make new jersey the example for how our entire nation can compassionately and effectively help families going through this personal hell. If we do it right, we will save lives not only in new jersey but all across america. Some will call this plan too aggressive but i dont believe its possible to be too aggressive in fighting this epidemic. I know this is a very different state address but when our children are dying, new jersey should be offended if i came up here and gave the typical political laundry list speech. Ill tell you theyll be even more offended if we dont act on this plan without delay. The challenge is enormous but i know that we collectively have the resolve to meet it. That resolve for me is fueled by the memory of a friend, when i entered law school in seton hall in 1984 i was lucky enough to meet a group of friends who ive kept for a lifetime. The closest were our first year study group, all the recovering lawyers in the room know what i mean by that. These are the people who in your first year when youre the most nervous, that you study with for all of your final exams. In my group there were nine of us. Weve been fortunate and successful professionally, three have been become very successful private practice attorneys in new jersey, one is a assistant prosecutor, three are sitting judges, wonder how that happened and one became United States attorney and governor of new jersey. Weve been blessed personally. All of us have been married and we have 20 children among us. One of us was particularly gifted. He had the best gpa, he was on the law review, he got a great judicial clerkship after graduation, then he joined and outstanding law firm. He was the first among us to be named partner of his firm. In every way professionally he was an outstanding lawyer and a great success. He married a beautiful and talented woman. Together they had three incredible children. They bought a great home in the new jersey suburbs and we all enjoyed Family Vacations together. We all grew into adulthood together. By the way, he was also the best looking among us and even as he got older, he was an athlete that kept in great shape. He was an after individual runner and in short he was incredibly annoying. His avid running led to back pain. His back pain led to painkillers. And one night i got a call from his wife, she told me that he was addicted to the pills and alcohol that she had asked him to leave the house. He was living with his parents and he needed us, his old friends to have an intervention and convince him to seek treatment. So a group of us went. We convinced him to go. That began a nearly ten year odyssey, multiple attempts at sobriety, lots of counseling, lots of help and support in every way you can imagine, from those old friends and others. In the process he lost his job, he lost his license to drive, he lost his marriage. He lost his right to see his children. He lost their second home. He spent through all his money including all that he had saved for retirement for himself and his children. And then three years ago this spring on an early sunday morning, mary pat and i got the call we had been dreading for years. Our friend had been found dead alone in a cheap motel room with an empty bottle of percocet and an empty quart of vodka. He was 52 years old. By every way we measure success in our society, my friend had made it, great education, educate career, wonderful wife, beautiful children, fabulous home, plenty of money, goodlooking, successful. He was the american dream. And there i sat as governor of new jersey at his fun ral with our friends who had grown into adulthood together and we helplessly watched his family grieve his loss. As i sat there that day what struck me was, there but for the grace of god go i. This can happen to any of us, any of us. We have to start treating this disease not just jailing its victims. We need to give them the tools the need to recover. We need to stop judging and start understanding these simple truths. Every life is precious. Every life is an individual gift from god and no life is beyond redemption. President kennedy deal fined in his inaugural address nearly 56 years ago what Public Service and elected office should be all about. He said this with a good confidence our own surely reward the history the final judge of our deeds let us go forth to lead the land we love asking his blessing and his help but knowing that here on earth gods work must truly be our own. That is what Public Service is for me and that is what i will dedicated my final year as governor to for all of new jerseys families. Nothing, nothing could personify gods work here on earth more than saving lives, each and every life we can. That mission is my mission over the next 373 days as governor and i hope that you will join me in this mission. God bless you, God Bless America and god bless the great state of new jersey. [ applause ] announcer the u. S. Senate confirmed betsy devos as education secretary, the vote was 51 50. Mike pence was in the Senate Chamber to break the tie. If all debate time is used a final confirmation vote could happen at about 6 50 tomorrow evening. Congress tom price to head the health and Human Services department and Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary. Live coverage of the senate is on cspan2. And we have more state of the state speeches now with wyoming ve
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