Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday released plans for a $10 billion initiative to combat the escalating drug epidemic that she says has swept through rural America and has emerged as a regular concern among voters she has met in the early nominating states.
“In state after state, this issue came up again and again — from so many people, from all walks of life, in small towns and big cities,” Mrs. Clinton wrote in an op-ed in The New Hampshire Union Leader.
Her plan to address the nearly 23 million Americans with substance abuse problems includes helping state and local governments put in place school and community-based programs to combat drug use, expanding mental health coverage to provide long-term support and making sure more emergency medical workers carry naloxone, which can prevent death from drug overdoses.
The plan includes spending $7.5 billion, partly paid for by reforming the criminal justice system, over 10 years to support federal-state partnerships to help prevent and treat drug addiction. States can receive $4 of federal support for every $1 they commit to prevention, treatment and recovery programs.
The rising tide of drug use, particularly the spread of heroin in rural America, had not been an issue Mrs. Clinton initially anticipated making a priority in her presidential campaign.
After serving four years as secretary of state, she seemed struck by how heroin epidemic had affected families, as voters told her about their ordeals during an early campaign stop in New Hampshire. “We’re not just ‘discovering’ the problem,” she wrote in the op-ed. “But we should be saying enough is enough.”
The aggressive stance on combating drug addiction comes as Mrs. Clinton has also called for criminal justice reform and rethinking long prison sentences for low-level drug offenders.
“For those who commit low-level, nonviolent drug offenses, I will reorient our federal criminal justice resources away from more incarceration and toward treatment and rehabilitation,” she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment