With seven people dying every day in Pennsylvania from a drug-related overdose, the issue could become a key question for candidates in 2016.
Jack Stollsteimer, a Democrat running for Attorney General, released his plan for taking on the alarmingly quickening trend. Stollsteimer called his plan a “forward thinking approach [that] focuses on collaborative, research-based, multi-agency programs” to meet the challenges of drug addiction at all levels.
“To effectively combat the epidemic of heroin and prescription drug abuse throughout Pennsylvania, we need a new strategy, new tactics, and a new Attorney General,” Stollsteimer said.
The former state and federal prosecutor’s strategy includes assigning up to 2,000 agents to specialized drug task forces and establishing drug treatment courts in all 67 PA counties, as well as monitoring “powerful” prescription painkillers and prosecuting doctors who sell prescription pads or write “scripts for cash.”
2,497 Pennsylvanians died in 2014 from drug-related overdoses, with most deaths linked to heroin and prescription painkillers, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration Intelligence Report.
The state’s 142-day budget stalemate has stopped efforts to establish a state prescription database, required by an act signed last year by Gov. Tom Corbett. Officials have yet to hire a software company and administrator to run the system, Rich Lord of the Post-Gazette reports.
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3 Responses
You are correct, DemSoc. But that won’t keep them from trying to doubledown in the War on Drugs. Nothing the GOP likes better than a good war, or even better is a bad war, because it goes on longer and they can arrest more people and make more profit on private jails.
The real problem here is that we’re trying to handle a public health crisis as if it were a public safety crisis. To the extent that it IS a public safety issue at all is due entirely to the effects of an indefensible policy of prohibition. We won’t arrest or prosecute our way out of this problem.
Impostor Troll Alert !!
Impostor Troll Alert !!
Impostor Troll Alert !!