Gov. Brown testifies on Capitol Hill on opioid crisis

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, sharing state-level information and perspectives on the opioid crisis and offering recommendations on how to better address the public health crisis at a federal level.

“Opioid abuse can begin as easily as reaching into the average family medicine cabinet,” Brown said, according to a news release from her office. “Addiction is blind to circumstance, but the high costs of addiction are borne by our children, whose parents are unable to care for them while struggling with substance abuse. In Oregon, sixty percent of foster children have at least one parent with substance abuse issues, including opioids.

“If we can make meaningful change in prevention, treatment and recovery from substance abuse, we can create better lives for our families. We can see more success for students in our schools. We would lift a burden off our hospitals. And our law enforcement. And our prisons.”

Brown delivered brief remarks, sharing a personal experience with substance abuse in her family, and then fielded questions from committee members alongside Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland. She highlighted the need to improve data sharing from the federal to the state level and make affordable generic overdose drugs more available.

Brown also called for the federal government to turn away from a punitive approach to addiction in favor of a focus on prevention, treatment and recovery.

Governor Brown’s bill to tackle the opioid crisis was passed in the recent legislative session, and she will be signing it into law this month.