CPAC 2021- Preventing Addiction & Saving Life In America

Ladies and gentlemen, to what is probably the most important panel of today. And it doesn't just touch Democrats and Republicans, but people in Florida. This is an international issue. It's a scientific issue. It's a regulatory issue. It's a law enforcement issue. It's a tough issue. It's a life and death issue. My name is Peter Pitts, and I'll be your moderator for this evening. I'm a former associate commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And I have a little bit to tell you myself. So, the regulatory piece of this puzzle is incredibly important, and it's really key. But just one piece. America's opioid crisis has claimed many victims. The crisis has been the causes. Drug defiance and the sale of pills. Blacks, federal, state, and local oversight. Opportunistic criminals willing to sacrifice lives for profits. Lawsuits will help fund recovery programs. Initiative cooperation will help shut down opioid pill mills. And track the various practices of doctors and nurses. Corporate programs will help identify employees in crisis. Help provide resources for earlier intervention. And I'll talk about all of these things this evening. The most powerful tool we have to combat the needless debt caused by the illegal, inappropriate use of opioids. Doesn't come from law enforcement, or savvy police work, or workplace intervention. It comes from personal responsibility. And we're going to talk about that today as well. A lot. Let me briefly introduce you to our panelists. On the right is Ashley Lutie, Florida Attorney General. Let's give her a hand. I'm glad you told them that. Thank you. On my left is Jacqueline Siegel. Jacqueline is a story teller. She's not going to be pretty. But she's going to be here. On Jacqueline's left is Dr. Bremmer. Chair of the Center for Mental Health. It's very important to applaud Florida Department of Justice. Because they really own the system. It's very important to let go of some of the people's rights. And a lot of opioid users in Florida. In many respects, they have zero proof of application. You know, there's a lot of rights. And to my right is Anthony Davis. He's the CEO of Red Lobster. And I'll give you a little hint as to where Kate is going with this. He's going to talk about things that go beyond soundbite, deal-grade, corporate purpose. This is a company and a league that really is devoted to helping things get done at their work. So, Ashley, let me turn to you. You really are a significant part of the application. We have seen a number of different ways. Like I was telling you, there is this model that we support in Florida now. And who are your allies? Who do you think are part of the really amazing programs that are going on in Florida? Well, you know, yeah. First of all, I have to turn to you, Brian, to praise my family. Because they're so good. Because they're so supportive. You know, in terms of allies, you're looking at three great people right here in the state. Whether it's the sheriff who says, honestly, we're not going to rest our way out of this. Whether it's the mother who has a sense of self-devastating loss of the crisis. Who works for part of the area. Whether it's the businessman who puts his time and money where his mouth is. These are remarkable individuals. And I really think these are great examples of what makes Florida so great. These come together. As you've seen from the past year, we've gone back down from the challenges. The opioid crisis is a challenge. Just in this county, in my county, we've lost the most people at an all-time low. Florida, for 39 years, we've been through a lot of change. We've met killers. We're still very much threatened. We have 17 people dead. But what we do in Florida, as we come together, and engage, and dig in, and stand up, we are always, I call it Florida Fundamental, we will always protect citizens, make sure they have the space to pursue happiness, and the freedom to prosper in somebody's life. And we're going to do everything we can to protect that. Whether it's how you've seen our terrific governor act in this last year, or whether that's protecting people in what I would call sometimes violent bleachers, which are drug traffickers, which suck the health and prosperity right out of communities. And the only way we can do that is if we come together. A government didn't start this problem. A government will not solve it alone. And that's why I am so glad to have allies like those on the stage that know what community really means. Just as much as if you live somewhere, or you just work somewhere, it means to actively engage, and cooperate, and participate. That has something of value to contribute to the community. I want to ask you, what do you think is the biggest value of protecting people and supporting people? I think for the most part, there are a lot of opportunities for people to make real difference. And I think the last piece of advice I would give to a person probably getting rid of that, is get on your feet. And get ready, it's your time, it's everything. And it's your time. But we all know that we've got a lot of opportunities for people to solve these problems. Well, I don't think there's a lot of discussion out there about the trafficking in opioid drugs. Take fentanyl for instance. Just this past December, we intercepted ten times more of fentanyl than we did just this December prior. Someone tried to bring it up all by themselves. That's a national security issue. And what has the new administration done? They've recklessly abandoned it. They've been issuing executive orders. Just recently, they canceled an operation that was designed to intercept the drugs from our community. Canceled it. But I'll also bring your attention to just a few days ago, the administration came out and changed the guidance on who needs to be removed from our country. I am a piece of law enforcement. Forcing them to put these people in a jail with prostitutes, right? Many of those drug traffickers love opioid drugs. And I can tell you as a former prostitute, as a former judge for over a decade, as the wife of a law enforcement officer, some of these folks, I am telling you they are threats to our community. And so if law enforcement has no ability, because it has no cooperation with the federal government, to remove them from our community, we are really at a loss. But we're not talking about just power. We're talking about who do we have to protect? Well, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Let me ask you. I think there's a point right there. On the opioid epidemic, the media, and I'll let my fellow fans hear this. I do think they have a healthy attention span and want to get the word out about how bad. We have seen so many things devastate our country. So it sounds like we're making progress over time. It seems like we're over those guys. So it seems to me like we're taking too much of that and hoping to get the word out. And I will leave that to the state. I contradict that answer. I do feel like we're hoping to get the message out. But would I be in a position to say that we're not doing enough? But let me get this straight. I'm not saying that we're not doing enough. I'm saying that we're not doing enough. So it seems to me that we're at the same time trying to help the nation recover from the threat of addiction. We need to get to the left track. Because it takes a better shot than the right track. And it's more important than ever to get to the right track. And it's importantly for us to have the tools and resources to get the right track. And it's not just the technology. It's the people that are in the right track. Because if you don't build your capacity and reach into that community. There is a faith. More than just me in my office. There are so many people that work behind the doors. Traffickers, addicts. But at the same time, we set up a one-stop resource called Go To The Reality. We've been working with educators, we've been making sure all of us have access to marketing, we've been working with community members, we've been working with teachers, we've been working with youth organizations, we've been working with children's organizations, we've been working with youth organizations. This is a process that we're going to address the bad guys and all of them as well. We truly have to make this a priority. I'm grateful that people in special needs are doing that national service. I'm thankful that President Trump has declared it emergency or for the Governor, Mr. Scott, or Senator, that's there to do it. I'm thankful that our team has recognized that passion for this work and has adopted it and has shared the need of panel of experts to continue to play a character that we're going to add to the team of teachers and educators. Thank you. Jess? Why are you here? I'm here because I'm very, very, very grateful that today we are doing what I am so thrilled to be able to do. I'm here with my sister's mother. My husband and I, we don't have any kids, we don't know what kids were. We don't know who they were. We don't know who they were when they died. They said they were on a low death. But life was perfect. We had eight children. And one day, my daughter, she had a double birth. My mother lost her daughter when she was born. And she lost her husband at the age of five. And it was quite devastating to both me and my husband and our family. But we were able to do that because we felt like it's our power to do the work. And we felt like it's our responsibility to do the work. And I think that was valuable to share it. And so, my sister and I really spent the first night and my husband and I spent the first night in a very small town that's in central Florida. Very small town. And we got there at about 40. And we were able to build a large-scale terrace up and reach the top of the state's largest city in Florida even though we were the only one in the world to actually have a house. It was something we can do to try to save lives. Educate people. And save other people from going through the same or any of the same or the same or the same or the same. We went there and we were so thankful and we know that we are going to go to heaven. And so, he and I and the support that they have put in us together helped me to kind of, I don't know, put aside the loss of her life. But we weren't going to let her die in vain. So, we took her loss and we really tried to get a way to like, to save other people's lives instead of her death. And we went on a national level. We went up to Washington, D.C. We told the Victoria's Choice Foundation that we felt that we had lost So, because of us, I mean, five years ago, no one talked about the drug epidemic. If you saw a daughter or son die, it's just always the same. It's the same thing. It's the same treatment and stuff. But they don't say, you know, cocaine, opiates, but now that we were talking about it, now we know that these drugs have no problems out there. And we're hoping to deter people that are taking street drugs from doing them. and we're doing things with school programs and educational programs. And so, I'm thankful for Sheriff Luna and Ashley Moody for knocking on their door and with open arms. It was like they were best friends. Like, I didn't have to keep knocking and crying and calling. It was just right there. I was on the Capitol. And I guess all I had to say was I was afraid I was going to die. But she saw the news and heard about it. And she said, absolutely. So, I have to thank her for that. So anyways, before my daughter passed away, she wrote a book. Well, she didn't write a book. She wrote a diary. When she was 12 years old, from before she even knew what a drug was. It was her journey of getting bullied and going through all of the things that kids go through in middle school like I'm too fat or too thin or I've got acne or I'm not smart enough and all this. And then she turned to drugs. With her peers, she felt like she fit in well. And it was sort of a mistake. But it's her diary that I have right here. She asked for me to apologize to her. She sent a text to a friend that she knew she was playing with the devil. And one night when she thought she had an overdose and she didn't survive, which I never knew about until after, she sent her friend a text to let her mom, to let me know where her diary was and that she wants me to publish it because it will save lives. Because it will help other teenagers know that they're not the only ones with the feelings of not fitting in and all her struggles. And it will also help parents to open up their eyes if they read what was going through our daughter's mind. It's a crazy thought. That is probably happening to their children. That their children are insecure and getting bullied. And actually even as adults, the bullying never stopped. It's just a life skill. And if they turn to drugs, my daughter died in the end. So thank you to all the parents for helping with life. And in the book, it's just her whole diary. Nothing was edited except we just wrote some names to protect me from her friends. And it's just quite interesting. And then me and my husband have a role in coming after her in that. How many people in the audience have left the chat? But I bet more people know someone that has some sort of addiction. One of my jobs is to answer the questions that people have. I realized early on that it's a great deal of fun and it's a ton of fun and it's important. But it's important that it outweighs anything at all. And I think it's really what's great about this book. It's important that people that don't use drugs use it for the greater good. That does not happen all the time. It's important that people that use drugs use it for the greater good. Thank you. And I also want to thank all of my friends and supporters out there and everyone that's watching virtually. It really means a lot. It just shows the support that we have. Thank you. Well done. Thank you. That was great. Well that's the greatest part of the book is the rise of the addiction. And I think that we recognize that and finally We have never in our history thought that there's this group of people that we have today that have died from anything other than this. The saddest part is the numbers are skyrocketing. There is a 16% increase in overdose cases in Florida, a 31% increase in overdose deaths, and COVID and sheltering in place and all of these things brought unimaginable consequences of despair, depression, and you cannot treat opioid use disorder in a vacuum. You've got to treat mental health, substance abuse, and you have to do it all together. We're doing that, and I know Tim is going to talk a little bit about that. I do want to spend a moment on the enforcement side, because my role is not only to supply demand, right? If you break the demand by getting people healthy, you're no longer looking for drugs. But at the same time, drug dealers have to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. And I'm proud to say that in several counties we have charged with our partnership with our 18th District Circuit State Attorney more people with first degree murders than any other county in the state. When drug dealers are dealing deadly doses of narcotics, they need to be held accountable. And unfortunately, the majority of jurisdictions across the country are treating overdoses as accidental, unintended deaths. And if you do nothing more than forensically examine the phone of the deceased, the victim, one of the top five most frequently called numbers will be the drug dealer. Go get them and put them in jail, because as long as they stay out on the street, other people are potentially going to experience similar things. As I wrap up on this, think about fentanyl for a moment. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than heroin. I'm sorry, 100 times more potent than morphine. 50 times more potent than heroin. Carbine fentanyl is 100 times more potent than fentanyl. For a microgram, the equivalent of 8 grams of salt, is a week ago. The reason why people are overdosing is because if you were on that Oxycontin regimen for 5 years, before your doctor said, hey, this isn't good for us, you can't get it anymore. What they're doing is they're going online, these are being manufactured overseas, coming across our borders, coming to our mail, and people are saying, you know what, 80 mg of Oxycontin looks just like the stuff that I've been taking for 5 years. But it's made to disrespect. They're taking it and they're dying to use it. I will tell you, this panel right here, General Moody has been so passionate about this topic from actually before day one. He has influenced and inspired our work and has encouraged the use across our state and nation. The actual story, if you don't want to fight harder for families and victims, he has the courage of a lion to be able to publish his diary. She and her husband took this. This is Narcan. They single-handedly funded Narcan for police departments and agencies and did all of the service, serving as ambassadors for this. This quite literally brings people back to life. Seminole County law enforcement professionals have deployed this 650 times last year alone. When I first started giving 30 years ago, we weren't carrying medicines on our belts that brought people back to life. This work, and you can think of what the numbers would be if it wasn't for this, and of course the pandemic has been such a strong ambassador for those who are being threatened. This is a big problem and I am incredibly optimistic that we have a strategy to combat this because, for the purpose of being clear, everyone in this room should be talking about this. I'll come back to what you said on Narcan. You brought up the question which is, from a task force perspective, this is just one level of government that is so strong. The state of Florida really did a nice job of working with police departments and agencies. What does Narcan do for you? What other assistance do you need? Well, I think what helps is we have a fabulous governor. We have a very engaged first lady. We have a wonderful attorney general. And we have a legislature that will actually work with us. But probably most importantly, we have citizens that appreciate the work that we do day in and day out. That's why people are leaving other states, including Florida. And we found a way to do this without having conversations of expanded Medicare and Medicaid. We have built partnerships with the private sector. Individuals will come to the table and actually help us fund these things. Everything that we've done in Selma County, we're proud to say we've done it with a public-private partnership that has not been off the taxpayer's doorstep. If we don't fix these problems, we as taxpayers will end up raising generations of families. We know that if you're the son or daughter of somebody who's incarcerated or addicted to a substance, you are eight times more likely to engage in our death penalty system. We have to fix it. And then we fix generations to follow. I think that that's what happens here. We have the right to do it. I have a little bit of a positive. Mr. Mayor, so are you saying that government has always been so supportive? If you back government out, it's amazing what we've become. That's a good thing. Government has a large role to play. It has a role as a convener. It's got a place to serve. But it's part of the society. It's a broad spectrum. It's got to grow. It's got to take a place. We don't have to do this alone. We have to do this together. You know, my husband and I, we were involved in testing the CARA app. It's up in Washington, D.C. It's not available for first responders all over America. It was sitting on the shelf for three years. When we went up there, my husband, which you can watch on YouTube, called The Princess of Versailles. It's like our journey right after our daughter's experience day. You know, one other thing that's funny. My husband and I were invested in Narcan. But in the financial times, we were so vocal about Narcan. They listened. They said, thank you David Segal for making our stock go up. If you guys don't know about Narcan. Narcan is a drug that was made to treat people who have substance use disorders. It's a treatment that puts your body in force to make you have it. It's a treatment that's for you. It applies to everyone. It's in the brain. It's in your brain. It's in your heart. But most people don't know about Narcan. Most people don't know about Narcan. The princess of Versailles It's not really the same thing as Narcan. If you're on Narcan the regular Narcan, everybody wants to get town. If you're on Narcan, the Ligdia is on the Friday and you're on Narcan. If you're on Narcan the regular Narcan is on Lidia when everybody wants to go around national park All we're working together is to help one another, and we're working on a lot of things. Even before the pandemic, we were working on a lot of things and we had a lot of things to do. So we're working together, and we're working together to make sure that we're making the best of our time. And we're working to empower the people in our communities to make the best of their time. We have a lot of people in the business community that are helping us out, and we're working to empower them to make the best of their time. It's a place where we were able to do what we were doing, create self-practice, build a place for people and communities, and work with all of us to have a good time together. So, I've been working with the American Civil Liberties for many, many years now. I have so many programs out there that didn't fit into that line, and some of them did, and some of them didn't. Well, first of all, this was working because we have so many people working together for a common goal. And I think everyone, regardless of all of us, we believe that the truth of American Civil Society is that it's about the people, and it's about the people, and we've learned, and we're practicing, and we're practicing together. That is not by our black and white countries. When we practice, and we conclude things, we have learned to look in all the other regions and practice in every sector, practice in every sector, and we can experience the importance of the people and the community, and the combination of healthy, and good medicine, and the fact that we do not have a country. That combination of factors is going to be more than enough to improve our lives, We need to make it more broadly known that we're trying to serve the people in the village, but we're doing exactly what we need to do in the city. And also, the thing that hasn't been talked about a lot, and we've really got to work on it, is that we've done it in different ways. We have found a number of ways to tackle this issue. There are lots of things we can do for the folks in this regard, and we're considering a number of projects in this regard. Could you hear me now? Sure. Let me just tell you what we're doing. There are lots of things we can do for the folks in this regard, and we're considering a number of things we can do for the folks in this regard. So, the progress we're making is the first one. I'm not going to talk about a specific way we're going to tackle this. I'm going to talk about an example of a number of projects. We have a number of things we're programming over there. And we're going to be working on doing similar things in other parts of the city. We're going to be going to the city of North Dakota. For that, the number one, I have a video on the top for you, is the number one thing we need to implement a opioid management program on our planet. A medical provider, or a pharmacy benefits provider, looks at everything, every single expert, looking at every single person in the world, and says, this is the best thing for us. OK. I have worked on this for several years. And so I have 30 days to try and implement my term of service in the United States. This is a two-day thing, which I've been working on. I don't have the right 30 days to try and work on this stuff. But they do. And so we know that combination of the same amount of time invoking that same group, at least is effective, and probably a little more effective with no reason to commit. So we have these experts looking at these things. It doesn't, if it looks like it might not be right, it has to be done. And so here's my final thought. And it's great. And they have a good reason. And it's a good thing. But if they don't, they have to do it. And I think it's crucial that we talk about this. And that's been incredible. Incredible. And they don't treat me. There's several components there. One is we have to make sure that we are not going to have to do some of the things that we're supposed to do. We also eliminated the use of the phrase in terms of getting approval. And that's incredibly important. And it's something that we have to work on. And how do we get the right experience to the level of approval that we've got to get? Because honestly, you have to go to court. You have to go to the Supreme Court in New York. So we have to eliminate the use of the phrase in terms of getting approval. the right experience in court. And that is what we do. And we have to eliminate the stigma that we have. These people have a problem. And they're embarrassed to talk about it. And that is the reason I started the video. Because a lot of people are embarrassed to talk about it. This is what's happening in the United States. It's not just the state of Alabama. It's the state of California. And so we have to try to eliminate the stigma that we have to talk about it. And we want to make sure that we also support the program. And we also recognize that no matter what we do, we have to take care of the citizens always at the front and say I don't want to do anything against the citizens. And so we also make sure that everybody is aware of the United Way and other things that are going on. It's so important for us to make sure that we know what's happening and we really need to know what's going on. And that's what we've been doing for the past year. We have been sharing our data with the data boxes of private corporations and it's part of our effort to identify and track the data to see what really works. And I have to say that in the state of California and all over the world, numbers have been increasing and what we're doing is making sure that everybody is aware of what's going on. I have a question for you and I don't know if you want to go back to what you were saying. What about the position at the county level and at the state level for this program? Because obviously part of the problem is that there's access to driving which is extremely difficult Is there a question for you? No. The data that you gave is really important and I'm not an expert on what's being taught in medical school but in general I've seen that every year. I agree with you. I have personally met with a number of people in the community and in fact I've seen an increase in the number of people in the community who have access to driving. It's really hard to find a number of people in the community who have access to driving. 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