Sheila Jackson Lee: “Or the mother who gave hydrocodone and alcohol as a prom gift to her son and his date. That date wound up dead at the…”

“Or the mother who gave hydrocodone and alcohol as a prom gift to her son and his date. That date wound up dead at the end of that prom. The rate at which the occurrence of heroin overdose deaths increased is cause for alarm. In the 4 years between 2010 and 2014, heroin overdoses more than tripled. This legislation encourages the development of alternatives to incarceration that provide treatment as a solution to the underlying motivation for criminal behavior or conduct associated with mental disorders. We must make our best efforts. It puts police in a position to be trained to use those drugs that will help when they come upon an unconscious person, like naloxone. It allows the criminal justice system to talk to the substance abuse system. In essence, it increases the use and availability of those drugs. Addiction is a disease; we recognize that. Finally, if I might say, I started with children, children, children. Just today, Dr. Phil is here discussing the foster care system. He said that most children are taken away because of neglect, and that neglect is based upon the use of drugs. That is a wrong direction. The direction should be that we keep families together, we invest, and we provide the training to provide them parental skills and, if they are addicted, to get them off of those addictive ways to be able to keep families together.…”