Chris Christie: Drug Addiction Is a Disease and ‘No Life Is Disposable’

EXCERPT:

CHRISTIE: "The fact is in New Jersey last year four times the number of people died of a drug overdose than died from murder, and three times the number of people died of an overdose than died from an automobile accident. Listen, what we need to come to grips with is, addiction is a disease. Addiction is a disease and no life is disposable. We can help people by giving them appropriate treatment. So our charge in this commission is to look at both, what the federal government is doing and what all the states are doing and say, how can we do this better to help people first not start taking drugs right off the bat? And then move on to say, if people fall victim to this disease what can we do to give them appropriate treatment to help them to reclaim their lives? We're doing that in New Jersey in a very aggressive way which is I think one of the reasons why the president's called on me to -- to run this commission and I look forward to working with him."