In the last decade, deaths from heroin-related overdoses have quadrupled in the United States. Presidential candidates touring the country, visiting the hardest hit states, have started to address the issue, calling for policies and funding to combat drug addiction.
Republican candidate Rand Paul’s trip to New Hampshire this week could have provided him with the opportunity to talk about and expand on his support for drug treatment. Instead, during a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire on Wednesday, he proved how little he understands about the causes of the heroin epidemic.
“People always come up to me and say, ‘We got heroin problems and all these other problems,’” the Kentucky senator said. “You know what? If you work all day long, you don’t have time to do heroin.”
The comments were surprising coming from Paul, who has previously been a supporter of treatment-based solutions. Earlier this year, Paul was part of a bipartisan coalition that introduced legislation, the Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Act, to expand treatment options for heroin and other drug addicts. The bill would also allow medical professionals to provide “life-saving” medication and therapies to treat addiction.
Later in the same New Hampshire speech, Paul said he supports treating the heroin epidemic as “a health problem and less as an incarceration problem,” but the damage was done from his earlier comments.
“That comment was basically prescribing more job availability as a prevention measure for the heroin epidemic, and that really misses the mark and is unrelated,” Abigail Woodworth, vice president for strategy of the Treatment Research Institute, told ThinkProgress about Paul’s statement that people who work don’t have time for heroin.
“He was trying to find a platform to talk about unemployment… But to bring the heroin crisis into that particular issue doesn’t make sense and in fact takes us back several steps to a public sentiment that was more focused around substance abuse being a moral failure or bad behavior rather than a disease,” she added.
Woodworth noted that the comments contradict other positions he has taken on drug abuse and his support for treatment.
“I don’t want to say that he’s all around perpetuating an antiquated or anti-scientific approach because his support for medication assisted treatment is more progressive,” she said.
The current heroin epidemic has more to do with the rise of prescription opioids than with other unsubstantiated causes like unemployment, she said. When prescriptions become too expensive or less available, people who became addicted often seek out heroin.
“A lot of folks who actually got addicted to opioids were people who sought treatment for pain-related injuries that may have come from work,” she said. “Someone who injures their back on the job, or something like that.”
People are totally off-base, she said, when they talk about addicts using drugs because they don’t have anything better to do.
Mark Parrino, President of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, similarly told ThinkProgress that many heroin patients seeking treatment are employed, so Paul’s statement is inaccurate.
He said the presidential candidates are “just drifting in” to discuss drug addiction and will have to hone their messages on how to deal with the epidemic. “This is a complex issue,” he said, adding that it doesn’t lend itself to snappy sound bites.
New Hampshire is one of the states hit hardest by the heroin epidemic, but its 3.7 unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the country, CNN noted. The situation in the early voting state has made many candidates address issues of drug addiction before they have proposed policies or discussed viable solutions with advisors.
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan told the Daily Beast that candidates will have a hard time not addressing the epidemic when campaigning in her state.
“It’s going to be really important that all presidential candidates visiting New Hampshire be prepared on this issue, to understand how it’s wreaking havoc in our state,” she said. “You cannot go into a room in New Hampshire, of more than a couple of people, and not have them raise the issue of how substance abuse is impacting our state.”