Jeanne Shaheen: We Have to Treat Addiction Like a ‘Chronic Illness’

EXCERPT:

SHAHEEN: "We know that it’s the over-prescribing of opioids that has led to this crisis and now people, when they can't get their prescription medicines any more, they’ve switched to heroin and heroin is often laced with fentanyl and now we're seeing even straight fentanyl because they can get it cheaper and easier. And what we’re seeing in New Hampshire is communities that are coming together to fight this horrible, horrible epidemic. Law enforcement — I think you’ve been to the safe station program in Manchester where our firefighters are involved in helping get people into treatment. And I think the thing that is beginning to make a difference, and we still have a very long way to go, is people understanding that this is a disease and that we’ve got to treat it like a chronic illness. We’ve got to get people into treatment. And understanding that we’ve all got to work together. That there isn’t a magic silver bullets. Communities have to come together to fight it and that we're not going to jail our way out of this problem."