Second, i would support those on the front lines with the resource that is they need. We work closely with Law Enforcement, with our nonprofit partners. We have made requests of our state and federal partners. We know what works best in our communities. Support thoesz on the front lines with getting the treatment that we need. The third is i would change culture, something that might take a little bit longer. We need to change that by asking the difficult questions. Why is it that we have a pill for every pain. How can we change the mentality that patients have and we need to ask the question, what pain is it that we are treating . We are not just treating physical pain. We are also treating deep trauma and dreep disparities, Mental Health issues that may need to be addressed in other ways. We know what works. We just need the resources to get there. I would do it. Would you tell people what safe injection site is . It is a facility they can be monitored while they are using drugs. It is a Harm Reduction approach as a Needle Exchange which we have had. There is one in vancouver. There is evidence saying it is one approach taken to reduce the number of Overdose Deaths. Because it is a Public Health approach it is something we would explore in Baltimore City if it were legal. We dont really want to go to jail. So i dont know that it will help or hurt. So in urban areas where there are people who are injecting drugs like baltimore. Yes. It is suburban and rural. We just saw a big fight over there should be a safe injection facility there. I think its very unlikely people are going to commute into town to inject in a facility. I think if they built it nobody would come. You many areas where there are waiting lists for Addiction Treatment which can effectively treat opiod addiction and you have this. There are interventions that would be much more effective. And tell us what youre going to do. There are many different policies. I heard an economist talk about the problem recently. He said theres no magic bullet, we need a magic buck shot. You have to prevent people from getting the disease and see that the people suffering from the disease have access to effective treatment. To prevent opiod addiction so we dont indirectly cause addiction. Theres quite a bit that can be done on a state and federal level and for the pistmillions are addicted you have to make sure they have access to effective treatment. Im not talking about rehabs or detoxes we will not be able to reduce Overdose Deaths and then one other point. We are failing in every aspect responding to this problem but we also need better surveillance of the problem. We need to know how Many Americans have opiod addiction. Over a million americans receive add hospital treatment for opiod addiction t. Estimate is 2. 5 million. The total under estimate is certainly well over 5 million that are addicted. We need to be able to measure the estimate of new cases occurring each year so well know whether or not our efforts to prevent opiod addiction are working. Thank you so much. Thats about all the time we have. Thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you more in the future. Thank you. We want to introduce our sponsor segment and bring to the stage joe burger, health and Consumer Solutions and dr. Wilson compton. So we have heard a lot of stra statistics. I was driving to the airport yesterday and heard the most recent statistics on central ohio and that the opiod deaths to go from 350 last year to 500 this year. We continue to be faced with this problem. Today im join bid dr. Wilson compton to discuss evidence based treatment strategies and to treat those who become addicted. Thanks for joining me. Glad to be here today. So lets start. What are some of the biggest areas of progress we have made . We are making some progress gu we still have a long way to go. I think you just reminded us even as we are making progress in a few areas the number of deaths continues to increase. It has every Public Health official and every policymaker concerned. How can we do a better job of addressing this Public Health crisis . We do see some improvements. One, the overall number of prescriptions written for opiods has begun to decline. It is in the willingness and overall overprescribing of these medications. We ned to decrease the number of prescriptions significantly. The second hopeful sign is we have seen an improvement in the use of these medications by teenagers. About 10 or 15 years ago we saw about 10 of 12th graders were misusing it for intoxicating properties. That number has dropped to under 4 . It is a terrific improvement. This is the future. These are the people that will go onto misuse and really develop Serious Problems that end up with addictions and deaths that we are seeing now. I think its very hopeful. Good. We have heard about medication assisted treatment a lot. I would like you to talk about what that is for our audience who arent as familiar. I think its a great question. What is medication assisted treatment . Basically it means using a Prescription Medication to combat the disease of addiction. It is a blocking agent. They come in two different classes. They allow people when dosed properly to get back functioning and save their lives. It has sort of the opposite effect. It is a blocking agent and now this new formulation can last as long as a month with a single injection. Are there trends . Are some becoming more popular . Are some being used less . Whats happening in that area . We would like to see these medications to every patient that needs them on demand. Thats the goal is to increase availability so if you or a loved one or you show up in an emergency room they can get you treatment on demand. Unfortunately that is not the case. We have seen increases in both methadone availability. They have to be in specialized methadone programs. We have greater number of prescribers and due to we see increases in the injection. There are tremendous barriers and a lack of educated children in additions to take care of this care. Whats keeping us from getting more broadly available . The fundamental issue is the stigma around addiction. We need effective medications that can combat it. I think forums like that that educate about the medical nature of this disease can make a big difference. We both live in the Research World lets talk about what you think needs to be done and talk about what youre doing to help us understand the problem better and address the problem. Im very proud of the work we are doing to address this Public Health crisis. I sort of put it in two main buckets. One is we have treatments that have effects. We have treatments that are useful. We have prevention approaches that can provide the tools they need to raise healthy children to keep them from moving. Why are we doing this . It is sort of the key research question. What can we do to improve the access and availability of the current treatments . As much as i like the current treatments and im thrilled we have this. They are not asfective or as good as i would like. This is a longterm condition people dont take their medications to benefit from it. They can provide tools to be the solutions if we invested in research successfully. We talked about how it is a bigger rural problem than maybe an urban problem. What are some of the ways we can help that Rural Community access treatments more effectively . We heard its easier but what about the rural settings . We struggle to get health it is really difficult. Theres some ak desz to general medicine. Sit to use part time practices. Other forums of helping people enter recovery. Research could help with that. It is with other novel ideas. What Public Health do you see having a positive impact . There are multiple policies and practices that need to be implemented. What can we do to change the availability of medications to treatment . Some states still have regulations that require to fail nonmedication treatment before you can even start medications. I want my patients to have access to the effective medications when they have the problem and not have to fail some other ineffective approach before they can take what might help them. Thats one example of policies that change. What can we do to make sure it is accessible when people have an overdose . In other places where people may experience this death . So thank you very much for joining me this morning. Thank you to our audience for coming. We are focusing on such an Important Health issue. I encourage you after the speakers are done to talk to our subject Matter Experts outside and now its time to turn it back over to the Washington Post for the next discussion. Thanks very much. [ applause ] in this segment we have ann pritchett. Well talk about the role in the epidemic and what might be done about it. If you would like to tweet us questions we can take them off of here and ask. Lets start with the premise that this country that has more opiods than it may need for legitimate pain control. Why is that . We have seen changes in that space releasing but clearly more needs to be done. There is insufficient use of Prescription Drug monitoring programs. They are state run programs as well as identify inappropriate prescribing behavior. Only 42 of 49 states require access those databases. We need to do more in using the recourses we have had. We saw they reduced the quota. We have a disconnect in they said there was a cushion and reduced the amount they lowered the quotas. At the same time we have a report saying when you look at drug shortages the majority are for pain medications. This is a very complex issue that we need to get our hands around collectively. I think we have seen tremendous progress from the administration where we have the fda announcing the new fda commissioner saying they will review what their role is in terms of the crisis that we have it is so it would be alternatives that arent opiods to allows to develop abuse deterre deterrent. Before we get to those, when we read or unfortunately some of us see on the ground and others experience that 780 million opiods are sent over a five year span, certainly the distribute tos know that that is occurring. The retailers who are selling them in drugstores no we that is occurring. Dont the manufacturers know as well . Shouldnt they intervene . I think everyone in the supply chain has a role to ensure that only as much medication is being provided. I think theres a disconnect that thats not currently occurring. I think there needs to be more 6 h more coordination engaging in these areas. I think theres a collective responsibility. Events like this bringing attention to these issues and that we have an issue that is focused on this. We have a congress over the past couple ofl years has come to the recognition that it is bipartisan issues, not political issues and we need to address them wholistically. I think we need events like this to bring ongoing dialogue about our collective roles. In what fashion are they engaging with the government in. I would say a number have been engaging in the discussions in terms of developing medication alternatives, that we have been active i engaged. Should there be mandatory prescribers for pain and addiction . We know its not popular among some provider groups but as a Risk Mitigation strategy for opiods it is to provide trainers yet what we have seen from the fda is only about they werent able to meet their goal of 80,000 prescribers taking that training over a twoyear period. We think it is critically important that there be a focus unfortunately no one likes mandates. Reality is they need better education about the treatment of pain and about addiction. Studies found medical schools only found a handful of hours. Thats that huge gap in our system. Our view is very strongly that you should only that physicians need the education needed to determine when its appropriate, when it isnt and they are relying on clinical guidelines on what dosage and for how long. I would say one of the areas we have been engaged in is educating, one of the challenges is a lot of people think because its a prescription medicine its safer than Something Like heroin which is not accurate. We need to educate the public about dangers. It is very disturbing that about half of those that use opiods get them from a Family Member or friend. Patients should take their medications as directed and have their discussion with their provider and that they need to secure their medicines and dispose of their medicines and certainly sharing medications is not appropriate. Okay. Lets talk about the medications themselves, those pills. Abuse deterrent pills or other forms. Is it possible . Can you make the medications unusable by abusers . I would say before i came to pharma i came more on the illegal drug side. We found those that want to do ill will have always one step ahead of the game. I do want to correct something. A lot of people think if its an deuce boous deterrent it means it cant be abused. Thats not correct. There are a variety of forms of abuse deterrent. Its one of the reasons why the fda requires post Approval Research so we are continues to collect real world evidence to assess how well they are working and their level of abuse deterrence. Thats one of the things that they are intented to focus on, how do we develop better abuse theres a lot more that needs to be done. Abuse depernt formulations we believe are one part of the tool kit. They are partly successful. Maybe you can tell us what it is and the possibility for using opiods that kill pain but dont provide the euphoric effect. There are about 40 abuse deterrent medications. A number of those are opiod deterrent agents. I would say one of the Biggest Challenges is when you look at the opiods that are on the market none of those have the abuse depernt formulations. Why wouldnt well, the fda recently finalized that. We are hopeful there will be generics. There is a lot of regulatory uncertainty. The fda doesnt have a black and white of here is the criteria of being an abuse deterrent formulation. We also have a disconnect in terms of when you look at the commercial coverage policies for these products. What you generally see is that the generics you generally see that it is two or three fear 4. Theres not kind of a calculation from that from the per specific ef that we need to be considering the for abuse. The fda said its a key priority to approve yet when it comes to the payment policies of these medicin medicines. I want to make sure i understand. 96 of the drugs that folks take routinely do not have any kind of abuse deterrent. Correct. So if a kid takes one out of my medicine cabinet there is nothing that would keep thim from crushing it up or cook it and injecting it. Right. We support mandatory education because we are developing new abuse. They need to know what the risks of medications are. I could say we have seen over the past couple of years it altered clinical guidelines. We had cdc release the guidel e guidelines on how do you treat chronic pain. We have these changes we need to ensure previebers are up to date as well. Educating the public as someone who has had by Substance Abuse issues, when im meeting with a doctor im perfectly comfortable saying is there a potential for you know, is there an alternative . I think we need to educate patients and care givers they need to be asking the questions that we need to empower them to be aware that medicines need to be taken appropriately. They need to be asking prescribers so they are being appropriately treated. And perhaps your loved one can ask them for you. It is one of those that increasingly youre take care of your parents. It is important among actually. We have two issues. Its not medical use and then its the issue of those being treated for chronic pain that become addicted. I would say one of the changes we have seen over time is simply focus on nonmedical use and how do we prevent addiction on those including pain medications over a long period of time. So i think of it as ibuprofen. It wont work for post Surgical Pain or late stage near end of life pain. Whats the development . We have about 40 different medications that hold promise but i would say when we are talking about lets say Breakthrough Cancer pain late stage having seen my grandmother suffer from late stage and fe a fentanyl is the only thing that would help her with that pain. I would note that former fbi director had a reporter that was bringing a they said hundreds of thousands of counterfeit fentanyl pills are coming through mexico and canada. As we heard from one of the prior candidates it is more powerful than morphine. We have a challenge of needing to address that patients have access to the medicines they need. So thats lot of progress that needs to be made. We need to take a holistic approach. We need to make sure they have the clinical guidelines and to be clear opoids are a critical medication. We do need to balance that including nonmedication alternatives. Other therapies that are appropriate. We are getting close to the answer. I want to ask you two more. We are getting a number of questions about cannabis. I think the point is to try to get me to say canabanoid in front of all of these people. There are some medical products available. We have looked at the pipeline. I want to say its a half dozen products that are in the pipeline that are in that space. There are companies enjoying and it has both practical, potential and affordability in. I think im not in a poe stisigs to comment on that. Okay. Gre great. Did in in the last second. Whats your list . Whats you list . We are given you all of the power. It is a multifaceted problem. Of my top five on the list its that we need to improve education for prescribers. It means on an ongoing basis. As part of that continuing to educate the public to increase awareness of opiods and we need to mandate the use of Prescription Drug monitoring programs. Studies show it does. I think we need to look at the flags for doctor shoppers. One of the things is to get to the information you need. We need to increase Law Enforcement capabilities to crack down on web sites that are illegally providing controlled substances in the ugs. We need to increase treatment capacity. I would say one of the big positives is having worked in here i think we made a lot of progress and that we are all here having this conversation today. Thank you. Perfectly on time. I will i would like to thank dr. Pritche trk t first and hand this over to my colleague mary jordan. She will be interviewing patrick j. Kennedy. [ applause ] im here with patrick kennedy. He devoted his life to going around the country and talking about addiction. He just joined the White House Commission we are delighted to have you here. We have heard a lot of statistics and sad ones this morning. Why dont we talk about what it does with people and start with your own personal story. My late grandmother on my moms side died at the age of 61 wasnt found for a week. Like most people with alcoholism she pushed away my mother, my aunt, her husband and she was alo alone. That same disease that she had passed itself to my mother who had very debilitating depression and alcoholism which i grew up with. My dad had all of the luminaries of the day come over to our house, people who were household names. My mom would shuffle through the house clearly incapacitated from her illness. No one would look up and no one would look at her and no one would say anything to her. So as a young boy i got the clear message these were not things we should talk about. I was hoping my mom would go into a room and lock the door to she would spare us the embarrassment of being out amongst everyone in our house. I had friends come over to the house to play with me when i was little. I was terrified my mom would come to the door if my friend rang the doorbell. My dad had a number of number of traumatic events. We didnt know what trauma was back then until 9 11, this idea of posttraumatic stress was in the no. If you wanted to find anyone who suffered from posttraumatic stress, my dad would be the guy. He would be a perfect portrait. From the assassinations of his two brothers . Yeah. Until after he died and there was all of this stuff written about how there were bullet proof vests in every closet. I didnt think anything of it. Someone asked me. I was like yeah. Arent there in your house too . It was a normal and until i was able to look back on all of it and understand what they were suffering from, and the thing i write about in my book is that the common aspect of it is that we dont talk about these issues. I ended up having multiple addictions and suffering from Mental Illness as well, underlying those addictions. Even though i was the sponsor of Mental Health parity at the law that requires Insurance Companies to pay for treatment the same way they would pay for any other Health Condition i myself could not wrap head around the fact that after i twoept rehab that i still needed continuity of care just like i got for my asthma. I have very very bad asthma. I have to see my primary care physician all of the time. Some how my insurers were paying for my inpatient at mayo but werent paying for any follow up. These Insurance Companies know better then they complain to people like me who are trying to enforce the parity law that well, theres all of these fly by nights down to florida that arent giving evidencebased treatments. You got me. Im not trying to protect them. I would like to shut those places down. 90 relapse rate for people coming out of those places. Insurance Companies Still have to pay for that. Thats not what we want. We want continuity of care, recovery living. So we are going to go back i jumped right into my policy speech. No. Trying to get away from having to talk about it. It is an important issue. First of all, thank you for sharing your story. I think that we have heard this morning about stigma and that it still exists and some how if its in your mind its not in your body. Do you feel like theres some Movement Forward . I think we are in denial. If it were an Infectious Disease we would be tloug hundreds of billions of dollars a at it right now. We we know what to do. We dont need Surgeon Generals reports. We dont need Washington Post forums. We know what to do. What needs to be done . It needs to be understood that its the whole person. We need to align financial incentiv incentives. We need to align financial incentives to encourage prevention, to encourage. Thats got to be our concept. If you grew up in a family where your mother or father was alcoholic, in jail, lived in poverty, witnessed violence you check those bars off of your trajectory and risk goes through the roof. So its not like we have to spend a lot of money on everybody. We have to spend the right amount of money on those with the highest risks. And spend it on prevention and chronic care. So now youre at the white house. Who showed up to that meeting . First of all the commission is really impressive. If anybody saw his video that went viral Everybody Knows governor christie gets it. He gets it. You know, we have governor cooper. She works at harvard. You guess her party affiliation. I am obviously democrat. You have got baker from massachusetts who is not like considered a real hard core trump supporter. You have a commission that i think is legitimate. Throughout the campaign he said this was high on his issue and well have to talk about what money is he putting up and especially with whats going on in health care right now. You know, is the white house really ready to address that . Youre one of the few people in there talking. You know, medicaid, my Opening Statement was the elephant in the room. Block grants, i dont want block grants. They only pay for nonevidence based treatment. You dont fight cancer with block grants. Its just we got is block grants whats going on . They are using it as a way of doing what they dont want to vote on doing. Thats sharply cutting the amount of money that goes to treatment. They say they are giving the same amount. States budgets are going to crowd out the funding and the money will be furnishable. They use them to fund other things. People with addiction are the most unpopular of all constituencies. They are the easiest to drop by the wayside. I think here is the big thing for the president. If she going to ask for an 18 cut i propose is that white house make an objective for our country to reduce suicide rates by an equal percent age for the american people. If we dont put our mind to something we will never apply ourselves to the goal at hand. I think when you see the suicide rates so high and all of the scientists will tell you, we can reduce those quite dramatically. We know what to do to reduce those. If we are not making it a goal of this country in well never be where with need to go. Do it the same as you do the reduction in corporate taxes. If we have hundreds of billions of dollars and this is the biggest Public Health crisis of times and it effects one in four americans why not say that we are going to spend one in 4 in money and put sbiet the biggest Public Health epidemic from our time. Youre hearing we dont have the availability out there, the tele medicine out there. What does that look like . What does the there is an epidemic. Everyone knows it. There are encouraging things in a town, in a country that is that cant agree on snig. Yes and Donald Trumps proer. It doesnt have any boundaries. Its money we have to watch f. Some of those were get someone said 291 billion. Yes. If the republican blans with half of what it pro vies. It is when this is getting worse, not better. Going back to this, speaker gingrich and i are pushing for a brain bond which can be paid for by slowly reducing the costs that are incured from brain illnesses in research or newer therapies. Thats the kind of marrying condition servetive an liberty points of view. We would be you incleesed cheel welfare. Prison tim, po realtime. Bro what they have not done is they have not quantified across many budgets what this epidemic is doing in terms of its cost to society. If you took the true honest zero based budgeting i think you can testify that it is smart to have an entitlement where you can track quality. Republicans should be about met we get our moneys worth and we are not paying for what works today. We should pair up and say listen, you want to get accountabili accountability. We want more people covered. Lets get going on this so they are certainly saying on both sides this is a massive issue. They are like at least through the federal government. Where in your discussions is there kind of hope that something in agreement, is it finally to get rid of the stigma . I notice people keep calling it a brain disease. And your hash tag is, right tell them what it is. 4brainhealth. And stop talking about it like its some moral problem as somebody earlier today said, right . I mean, where are you seeing agreement . Where are you seeing the road when youre active illness you do a lot of immoral things and thats why people are looked down upon. And thats why those of us whove been blessed to be in recovery talk about this as a threefold illness, a physical allergy, a mental obsession and a spirituality because if were acting against and hurting other people, were hurting our own chances of living in recovery, because we all are subject to guilt. We all have consciences. And i think that we need to have the active participation of the community. I was just with reverend and kay warren, fabulous people, purpose driven life theyve lost their son to these illnesses. And most churches have no way of talking about these things. I was asked by my Catholic Church to speak about these issues. I was denied communion by my bishop in rhode island for not having the right kind of set of catholic, you know, checklist. And yet now im getting messages from the bishop that im doing great work and that my parish priest thinks im great and im there on sundays. Im just saying to you that the point is like i dont know what the point is, but i just had to say that. But i think one point there is that times are changing. Everyone is touched by this. And people are getting it more. And at least that is a step forward. Well, i just get approached everywhere. I often say when i came back from rehab after crashing my car in the capitol and everybody knew i was addict alcoholic, no one else in Congress Knows who we are. But because i was in the newspapers all the time. So when i got to the floor, you would be amazed at how many of my colleagues grab me to pull me off the floor of the house to tell me their own stories because they didnt know amongst all my other colleagues which one of us was in recovery or struggling with a Mental Illness or addiction. And so it was a real, you know, eye opener for me that, you know, in this room theres a number of us whove been suffering. Theres a number of us whove already gotten our 12step meeting in for the day. And theres many of us who also understand as i do that it took both medication assisted treatment and 12 Step Recovery for me to have the longest period of stability and sobriety in my life. So its not as if its one or the other, but the whole advocacy communitys at each others throats because the 12step folks think m. A. T. Is an abomination, all the Scientists Say yeah but all the evidence says m. A. T. , medication assisted treatment, is what is called for with this opiate crisis. And we have scant application of them across the country and twothirds of the Rehabilitation Centers dont even practice m. A. T. And yet were paying for them. And theyre in violation of all the American Society for addiction medicine, and, i mean, if were not offering m. A. T. For an opiate addiction, youre not providing what the scientists tell you works. You know, ive got to ask you because your father devoted his whole life practically to health care. And when we see whats going on now, what do you think he would think about the gop plan and ripping up obamacare now . And then were going to talk about what that means for addiction. Well, my dad you know, just believed that, you know, he watched my brother teddy in the early 70s get treated for cancer. And he was standing in the same childrens ward as all these other parents who are hoping their own kids could get the treatment who had to discontinue the treatment because they didnt have the financial wherewithal. And i found out later on in my life how many families came up to me and said your father paid for all of our kids treatment after my brother was released. Because it was something that he couldnt abide by the fact that he simply had the money could pay to save his sons life but the other parents cannot save their childrens lives, he just said theres something morally wrong about that. And so this wasnt a policy. This was a principle. And i think he would just say, you know, how can we and, you know, we could go all into the economics that it doesnt actually make sense to cut people off because we know they come back through the doors sicker and more costly. And we all end up paying for it as a surcharge on our insurance for those of us who are fortunate enough to have private insurance. But its an inefficient way to treat people through these ers. The better way is to cover them and do the prevention that i spoke about earlier. But taking all that aside, its just about treating others as you would want your own loved one to be treated. And then when it comes to addiction since you know what youve been through and how hard it is, what is a good Prevention Program look like . Well, theres evidence you know, Wilson Compton could tell you. Theres terrific resiliency coping mechanism, problem solving skills that can be brought into education. I mean, keep in mind we focus on numerousy and literacy with our children but we do not focus on emotional strength, resiliency, problem solving skills, the very things that theyre going to need in order to be successful. So our Education System really isnt purely designed to produce the most capable, you know, effective and capable students. So i would say that we have to do social emotional learning. Its got to be in every class in america. And this isnt soft science. Theres a lot of data out there showing it reduces the dropout. It actually improves scores in some of the worst most violent sections of neighborhoods in this country where theyve tested, you know, mindfulness and other things, coping mechanisms, they find the kids score scores go up dramatically because theyre flight or fight mode which is whats going on in the brain if they come to school and theres gunshots and their mother or father is incapacitated from drugs or in jail. We need to help prepare them. Were getting a few questions on twitter a lot of questions on twitter, but several of them about marijuana. What do you think about marijuana as places around the country now are legalizing it . I just dont want it targeting kids. And when you look at the products that are being produced by the new big tobacco, its gummy bears with, you know, red, white and blue gummy bears. Its like elixirs. I dont know if you know what elixirs are gummy bears with marijuana in them . Thc. Im not talking about the smoked kind. Thats benign. Im talking about the kind you put in your ecigarette. We all see folks with their ecigarettes around here, a dab of this high thc concentrate. But its mostly the edibles. Yeah, theres all kinds of edibles. And you think theyre more addictive . Well, first of all i think we have already seen the dramatic increase in use amongst teenagers. At the same time that the use of tobacco is going down thanks to great Public Health efforts. I mean, imagine this country weve done all this work reducing tobacco use bless you. And now, now were like, oh, this is no problem. And, again, its the targeting of kids. So i think we should have an impartial panel of medical experts just reviewing the products that are on being sold out there and putting a stop to those products that clearly have a higher penetration amongst kids. We do not we should all be in agreement that kids should not be using this stuff. Because it effects their developing brains, because it puts them at risk for all kinds of other addictions including opiate addiction. And it affects their Mental Health dramatically. And if more people use, and if theres a certain percentage that have a predisposition to having Mental Illness or addiction, that percentage goes up if the Larger Population of those using goes up. So we just have to be very conscious as a nation what were walking into as a nation with the quote unquote legalization. But i think its the commercialization is the problem. And theres no way Public Health is going to be able to keep pace, dollar for dollar, with the enormity of the budgets that the big marijuana corporate folks are going to have to market this stuff in all kinds of ways that i think is going to jeopardize all our best prevention efforts. You know, theres one thing we can do, but if we got big marijuana just flooding with different ads that its medical and all the rest, if its medical then let it go through the usual medical process. Dont be selling something out of your, you know, basement, oh, its medical. Dont know whats in it. No way of telling you how it might be spiked. Dont have any sense of whether it gives you the relief that its supposed to give you, but its medical. How many kids you have four kids now . Four kids. And three under the age of 4 or something . You have a lot of little ones, right . Yes. So thinking about thats why im fixated on gummy bears. Okay. And im not kidding. Kids pick this stuff up, put it in their mouths. And its happening. But as we look to all our kids, and its tough now. It seems to me its tougher now to be a kid than it ever was. Theres more stuff on the market, theres more everything. What would you do to fix one thing across the country to make it better and easier for kids today when it comes to addiction . Well, i think look at the whole family. If your parents are in crisis, your kids are going to be in crisis. We cant think of this as separate issues. My first bill signed into law was called the foundations for learning act. It never got voted on in subcommittee, full committee or even on the floor of the house but somehow became federal law, had nothing to do with the fact my dad was chairman of the Conference Committee on education. So he air dropped it in. And basically it said that, you know, if parents need support, support the parents because youre going to end up helping the kid dramatically if the parent can get the support they need. If the parents a wreck, i dont care what you do for the kid, the kids going to have a tough time. We have to understand this opiate crisis. Last thing ill say is there is a secondary effect to this opiate crisis, and thats all the kids now whove grown up with these Family Members whove suffered and died as a result of this crisis. And let me finally say, suicide is not been talked about much at this forum, but you cannot divorce the suicide rate from the opiate overdose rate. And both of them are way under reported because a quarter of all corners in this country are elected. And theres no standardization for medical examiners, if you can believe it, in this country. So everything you saw if it werent carrie fisher, we would have thought she died of sleep apnea. She had the extraordinary circumstance of being an uber, uber celebrity so we found out Everything Else thats going on. We have no clue what the true suicide rate overdose rate is here in this country. And, you know, not to be too startling, but as i said from the beginning were in denial in this country if we think we can micromanage this a little here, and put a little block grant for opiates over here, god bless senator portman for pushing for that, but this is along the margins. We are moving chairs on the titanic is our current approach to this issue. We need to fundamentally come to a different approach to how to deal with Mental Illness and addiction and stress management and Mental Health in this country. Unless we celebrate it, support it, the whole health care system, encourage it, pay for it, reimburse for it, all these other costs are going to be playing whackamole. Diabetes is going to go up, cardiovascular disease going up, hypertension go up, suicide continue to go up, we have to make this a National Priority if we expect to do anything to help change the nature of this illness and actually make a dent in the future suicide and overdose rates. [ applause ] well, i couldnt think of a better way to wrap up an amazing morning. Thank you for being so frank and honest. And i think a lot of people here are delighted that youre on the White House Commission. And i guess theyll be hearing over there that their rearranging chairs on the titanic or the country is, the focus on family, the focus on stopping denial. Im very grateful and on behalf of the Washington Post and the Washington Post live, thank you all for listening here in the audience and those online. And were going to be putting up clips from today at washingtonpostlive. Com, and more comments about this whole amazing morning. Thank you, and thank you, patrick kennedy. [ applause ] thursday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern join American History tv for a live tour of the museum of the American Revolution in philadelphia. The museums president and ceo Michael Quinn and collections and exhibitions Vice President Scott Stevenson will introduce artifacts throughout the museum, including George Washingtons war tent and a piece from the old bridge from the battle of concord. Hear stories about the American Revolution and participate in the live program with your phone calls and tweets
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.