Medical professionals who treat addiction, lawmakers from hard hit areas, we want to in just a little bit. Well open our phone lines and you how the Opioid Epidemic is affecting you personally, first, part of our conversation from the author of he book dream land, the true tale of americas opiate epidemic. I want to ask you about something you wrote on your blog. Days g about heroin these is another way of writing about america. Who we are and what weve become. That. Ou explain sure. I began, it began to occur to me as i began to write. In the middle of this project, and i began to wonder this problem was affecting appalachian, but why it was affecting charlotte and salt lake and places that did very well in the last 20 to 30 years, not rustbelt areas at all. Common denominator . I began to understand that the denominator was our own isolation and that you were really writing about much bigger than simply Drug Trafficking. My background is as a crime thought i was writing a book about Drug Trafficking from mexico and marketing, pharmaceutical marketing, all of that is certainly part of the story, but beyond that it gets into who weve become. Weve become so isolated, weve done enormous amounts to destroy community in this country. The dream land title comes from a Swimming Pool in portsmouth, ohio, in on the ohio , river. Once were the thing the held the town together, thats where you grew up, it was a place where everyone came together and really. Ommunity obviously, it was sustained by jobs, sustained by good downtown, a main street. But once that went away, once away, it was ent ike salvaging of the societal immune system. Left places very vulnerable that ook place in a rustbelt areas, destruction of community, but in wealthier areas, and in suburban was so isolated, uburban community, architecture, almost designed for that. Technology, while it connects us really does a lot to separate us, so these were ome of the reasons why writing about heroin is writing about who weve become as a country, as a people. Dream land in d ohio. Mouth, what should viewers know about mexico . Yes. Part of my book deals with the uys who first figured out the heroin traffickers, who first igured out that this very aggressive push to promote pain pill prescribing among doctors doctors buying into that idea, would eventually lead to a heroin a vast new heroin and the guys that i write about in my book were the ones who figured that out and saw in columbus,erging ohio, in the areas around there. He various cities around cincinnati. Wheeling, West Virginia, places like that. Hese guys had developed a system by then, they developed coast, where all the markets that they broke into static number a of addicts, and they are all from the same town. T was all this one town in particular, i think it played a very Important Role in this. Name of the town these guys figured out a retail selling heroin by the 10 of a gram. Ery much similar to pizza delivery. So you call, you order, they to deliver driver hits of heroin to near where you lived. With their model initially developed it on the western side of the united tates, where the number of addicts were static. They became master marketers. They couldnt kill each other all from the ere same town. They knew where each others mother lived. When they competed they couldnt eliminate the competition the way people in the underworld traditionally have dating back capone. So they had to become master marketers and thats what they became. Way of discounting, giving dope away free in front of who done clinics, to guys just got out of jail. You bring five new customers, 50 balloons of heroin, that kind of thing. The key moment comes when they river for ssissippi the first time. One guy in particular, i talked jumped the ok, mississippi river, landed in olumbus, just as a massive new push is under way by pharmaceutical companies and pain specialists, particularly area of southern ohio, est virginia, kentucky, to promote narcotic painkillers by oxycontin, as t, new solution to pain. This creates a whole new number of huge new addicts and they are there to then service those addicts once hey can no longer afford those pills and are looking for something cheaper. So youve got a story of ohio, ike portsmouth, youve got the drug traffickers mentioned, what should viewers know about Purdue Pharma . Forming crucial in what we have today. Primarily i would say oxycontin was crucial. The drug that Purdue Pharma makes, was crucial. For two reasons. One was that Purdue Pharma used aggressive form of marketing to doctors, giveaways, similar to the marketing techniques that the boys used to pharmaeir heroin, purdue used to convince doctors that these pills were no longer particularly, oxycontin was no longer addictive and they would be fine prescribing it to their patients. And they gave away stuff. Dont do this any more but for seven years, for the drugs life they gave away trips. They gave away a c. D. Called swing in the right direction oxycontin, where we got some swing band tunes. T was a very aggressive, constant kind of marketing to doctors to convince them that to do. S fine and also, oxycontin was a crucial part of this because not contain any abuse deterrent for the first 14 years of its life so it took addicts, people would get addicted and it would take their tolerance up to very high would be d then they looking for a cheap potent heroin proved to be that, particularly the heroin from mexico, proved to be the crucial alternative in that. Showed viewers this chart of Drug Overdose disabilities 2016 rising somewhere to 65,000 people in United States, in 2016. Where is your story taking years . What i would say the mid1990s, i in in 2014. Ook those years, i would say, where then, of ing, and course, its interesting, when i was writing the book, im a long reporter and i kind of knew the most innovative and changing part of our economy is the underworld. Its always morphing into something new. I kind of knew that part of the story would just continue to morph as the book and the book came out thats also whats happened with the emergence of fentanyl as an people are drugs using. The book is dream land, true opiate americas epidemic. According to the centers for disease control, West Virginia highest opioid death rate in the country. 41 people died of opioid overdoses for every hundred thousand residents of state. The second and third hardest hit and s were New Hampshire kentucky. Public safety secretary john on ally of kentucky was capitol hill earlier this year testifying about the opioid state. Ic in his we loss hit 1,404 kentuckians congressman said. Fentanyl is now the driving force behind these overdoses. 13,000 e. R. Visits. 13,000 e. R. Visits in a state of 4. 5 million people. Country, youve heard the numbers, nearly a commercial airplane per day. If this were a disease we would wearing hazmat suits to combat it but overdoses and those visits only tell half the story. Devastates communities. As soon as we got our arms around heroin, we began to see fentanyl. State police tells us in the last six years alone, weve seen 6,000 percent increase in fentanyls in our labs. 6,000 percent increase. I think all of us know the devastation it had on our justice community, our jails and prisons are at capacity. Inn. Ave no more room at the the Public Health crisis is on full display in c. I. A. Hepatitis c rate, a form of Viral Hepatitis at seven times the national average. In t across the river indiana they had an outbreak of. I. V. That rivaled that of subsaharan africa. So we passed, one of the first pass a states, to comprehensive Syringe Exchange program and now in kentucky we have 30 programs passed by local option in our state. We know that that increases the treatment capacity by five times. Someone just walks over the doorstep of one of those programs and it battles back diseases. Sadly kentucky, as the cdc 54 of 220 counties, most susceptible to a rapid outbreak of h. I. V. So what is our response in kentucky been . Bold step on the exchange program, passing comprehensive legislation in consecutive years on and pill on bills mills. Second state in the country to attle back synthetics, dealing with heroin directly and fentanyl. Being the first state in the usage of whatdate we call our Prescription Drug monitoring program. Weve become the first state in the country now to equire physicians when prescribing, to limit for acute ain to limit prescriptions to three days. Some have done seven or 10. E limited it to three days and i can promise our governor spent some capital on that thats how him. Tant it is to weve dubbed things on worker rograms and help for those who are addicted through various forms of treatment. Gain, looking at things like neonatal abstinence syndrome, weve increased funding many and to helpbat that the suffering of those addicted there. Weve put it in our jails and in our prison. Again, i think i mentioned rocket dockets with prosecutors put y to make these cases, them on a separate plane to deal with them in the most appropriate way possible. Weve increased treatment at the department of corrections by nearly 1100 percent since 2004. We validate that treatment every year. The return on investment now is almost 5. Some of the innovative programs have heard about is just recently chronicled in the new is the way we use trexone on the front lines. We give an injection prior to release and injection upon we try to link that returning individual to the services in the community, to if they are medicaid eligible, to see what resources they have to continue that a question d i know will be do we link those folks up to counseling. We do our best. Its not mandated. Best. Our in kentucky ill tell you both validated and anecdotally were tremendous results from sing m. A. T. And counseling together but in the form of cognitive behavioral therapy, seeing that used in jails and prisons. Emulate whats been going on in rhode island with the anchor e. D. Program. We visited with the director ago through an nga project and were doing peer recovery and bridge clinic soon. Well use a to the line to get folks linked up o treatment and educating our medical and dental schools. Ide close out and conclude, i we have the ink most comprehensive effort that ive seen in 25 years in criminal justice with something core, the response effort, and so with that i look forward to questioning. Chairman. , maryland is another state struggling with the opioid of this year, y the states governor larry hogan signed legislation that would doctors to prescribe the lowest effective dose of painkillers. And another bill to allow prosecutors to seek an drug onal 10 years for dealers who sell the open owed fentanyl. Fentanyl more about later tonight. Well hear from the maryland governor. We havent heard a lot about heroin and fentanyl, its mostly prescription opioids which is a big part of the problem. Overdoses in roin maryland. Started as an overprescribed drug problem but it evolved. And this problem is constantly evolving. We went from heroin to fentanyl one is a fentanil and hundred times more powerful than the other and its killing people the first time they are using it. Issue that ive been, as governor baker has since i irst started running for governor i traveled around our state and i was shocked to hear from one end of our state to the people talking about, whats the number one problem in your region and they would say heroin. And it was in small towns and in rural communities. Problem. T just an urban none of the government leaders at that time were talking at it. It was something we were sort of being quiet about. Governor in became 2015, the first thing i did was reate an emergency opioid and Heroin Task Force and i had our Lieutenant Governor chair it. Around our arings state in various regions, to give input, and hundreds of show up. Uld and out of those hearings, we with 33 recommendations, from education and prevention to intervention, and we enacted all 33 of them. Down the hing to slow problem so we went further. We passed tougher laws on Law Enforcement. We doubled the number of treatment beds. Did nothing. The crisis kept evolving. Hair win in the last 12 months in our smallpeople state of maryland, which is far gun shootings, and traffic accidents and a number added r diseases, all together. So we, all of these governors at this table have done incredible work. Everythingone almost that they have done in every other state and it hasnt slowed this problem down. To grow out of control. We ball game the first state in declare state of emergency. Some people may remember the riots in baltimore. Declared a state of emergency, sent in the national guard, extra police officers. This emergency is far bigger. Have a single death in the riots in baltimore. 12 ave 2,000 in the past months with heroin. Nd opioids and fentanyl and carfentanil. Its tearing apart families and communities from one end of our other, and ill just say, in spite of all of our we arent making much progress. Weve got to find a way to get the federal, state, local working in the same direction together with Community Organizations and faithbased organizations right and weve families, got to hit it from every direction with everything that weve got. This is one of the biggest ever affect our country. Not just from a drug crisis, number ng to become a one killer if we distant slow this thing down. Earlier this year, President Trump appointed new Jersey Governor Chris Christie to lead the president s commission on drug addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The president and Governor Cabinet roomin the of the white house to hear from addicts. Ng as you know, youve been the governor of indiana for four ears, this issue causes enormous pain and destruction to everyday families in every state in this country and thats why i felt it was so important to bring pam and a. J. Here today to you meet them and hear directly from them their stories. Honored that the president would ask me to take on this task with the group that weve put together, and im to work with the on they general as well, issues of prevention and so we dont drugs get people hooked in the first place. Addiction is a disease. A disease that can be treated. And we need to make sure we let the president talked about how folks dont talk about it. We talk about cancer, we talk about heart disease, we talk diabetes and were not afraid to talk about it but people are afraid and ashamed to about drug addiction and while they dont talk about it lives. E lives of good people. N the end the president ended by saying talk about life. Were both prolife the difference between the were nt and i is prolife for the whole life, not just for the nine months in the the whole life. Every life is an individual gift rom god and no life is irredeemable and people make mistakes. We all have. Drug make a mistake with use and it is a mistake. We cant throw away their life. Thatresident and i believe every life of an individual is a gift from god and is precious, an thats why it was such important issue for him in the campaign, and why im so honored to work with the president who the value of life. And the value of Second Chances. Commission,what this i hope, is going to be about. To be able to give he and the the best dent suggestions we possibly can, about having a national fight epidemic. Is mr. President , thank you for your conference and thank you for your support. You. President trump thank you very much. Tell a nessa, you could little bit of your story. So beautifully. So first of all i would like you so much to bringing a national m to level. There are people dying ever day and its heart breaking. Governor christie, i need you to know that i draw so much from you. Nd courage standing up for people who had given up completely. In me from a small town south jersey. My aunt is a teacher, and she the importance of education. My uncle is a firefighter. He taught me the importance of law and order. I went to a private high school, was a cheerleader. I went to college, where i sorority. Fter i left college, i had an njury and was prescribed painkillers and it took off from there. I knew nothing about heroin. Warned. Ver not that its anybody elses fault. It began with an injury . Prescription, a painkiller. What was the drug they gave . Percocet. And then from percocet and then from oxy, it went to heroin, because it is efinitely, like you said, more acceptable and so much cheaper. Everything. , i lost i was homeless. I chose to be homeless. Streets of on the and out city, i was in of jail. And i was lucky enough to see kind of light where i was became a pimp a system that we have in new jersey, which saved my life. They sent me to a long term reatment facility, integrity house in new jersey, and they life. My how long did it take you to get off this horrible stuff, how hard was it for you . Basically, it was so hard. And i felt that was the hardest part. Couple of months later, the psychological aspect think that you need it. Youre re still still not as sad. You have no feelings. Like youre a shell, and it takes over your whole life. To choose to be homeless instead of live with your parents. Choose not to speak to your family. What did your parents say during this whole process im looking at you, american, all perfect. [laughter] im saying its hard to believe that youre living on streets. Hard for my shed for my family. Streets uld drive the of Atlantic City to find me. She couldnt find me. Aspect at lost in every of the word. And in jail, like i said, i was sent to integrity house and they my life. They gave me a Second Chance at life. And from there, i went to a house. I got a job. Out. I quickly moved got an apartment. Im graduating from drug court year, and its amazing the opportunities that have been me, sitting across from you right now. Years ago, i didnt have a clue to live and today im here to represent the light that can born out of the defeat of this darkness. And there is a tomorrow. And there is a day after that. And ave to fight for it people have to know that there are people fighting for them, too. Because you give up. There comes a point where you you have nothing. You have already ruined everything so there is no point here to ber