is a crc card which shows what they been incarcerated for and we asked them to provide that with their application. when that comes in you can't see it but it's clearly all the charges are related to drug offenses. then we use that washington application to get the information we are looking for. there is their meeting right there. this is at one of the houses in oklahoma city. at their business meeting on sunday night at 7:00 the applications are passed around and voted on at that point. they go right back to that the pewter and there is a pre- done acceptance letter on there that they forward back to the originating e-mail letting them know if they were accepted or denied into the oklahoma reentry program. this works the same at all of the houses. these particular houses are able to process these applications rather quickly and have no vacancy problems ever. the new member needs we get guys off the bus and they have nothing. they don't have a pair of sweats

and shower shoes, they're lucky if there have their roots in our residents, through the chapters kick into a fund to provide them their basic needs. if not, the house does that. a lot of times they don't even have the ability -- we get them in id, social and the food stamp card and prepare them for their health interview which will -- we give them a couple weeks in the house. how that happens is we have a houses that are chartered for around 12 men in there is room in there for a few extra and in that moment they can use some of those beds to keep guys moving because the house is viable. it's chartered for one number and they run that number but there's a few beds within the number that they can get people in. we work on, again, the eye dedication, food, clothes, educating them about what they are involved in and reassurance

because we don't want them to admit it but we are scared. we get out, get out to the house and i see it all the time that the committee that first house and they don't want to go to the second one. you say it will be okay in this house will be a little more in the neighborhood you are wanting and it will be all right and we will help you with that interview. the first thing we do is get them on the vacancy site and after reassuring them and having them set up their own interview of where they are wanting to go. surrounded through all of that is areas across oklahoma that have found the benefit of helping these men and women. they are not judged by it. we've got a really good system and its done through successes. that is the outcome and successes in that picture there is one of the houses in oklahoma city and if you look close enough to the house is vote house of the year voted by their peers every year since 2014 and it's that particular house. that is voted by the whole area. that house gives two other houses, shows up to meeting, helps in any way and does

exactly what an oxford house is supposed to do. we have houses all over the state of oklahoma and i have a stigma in my head of what i got there that you couldn't have a house full of anybody you don't want a house full of people from the treatment cente center or ae full of district i had the pleasure of working with houses all over oklahoma that are one 100% comprised with return to society members. i go in and i look at them watching the movie and all the new guys got single monitors on and they are enjoying the tv that is across the whole wall. this right here is a snapshot of the financial situation of the growth house in oklahoma city the day i left and they have $7000 in savings. their checking account balance goes anywhere from 2900 a month down to a low amount when they pay rent.

i didn't have the room to put it but they average anywhere between 175 to $275 going is that making. those gentlemen that came out of that prison that are living in the house are in discussion about opening an oxford house. it's really a cool thing. [applause] there is some of the guys from one of the houses enjoying a retreat in arkansas that the house before. it is very possible because what i have seen in oklahoma is the services are so lacking in the gentlemen and ladies are coming out of prison and they actually have a pretty clear head and the need a chance. if you catch them before they end up with a drug dealer or in

a bad situation when they are trying to seek out housing, what a better place to walk into. we make sure they've got everything they need and it's becoming more and more fortunate as we move forward and i am blessed today when i get to go home after this convention i get to spend a big percentage of my time working on that. it's really what i love. i have been there. there are several outreaches in oklahoma that are working on this and we all are in one veracity or another but because we have these metro areas were able to get the system rolling and what great is the residents are doing it themselves. i appreciate your time and thank you. [applause] >> senator dan. [cheering] let's hear from an actual oxford house resident. will bring out mr. hiram.

[cheering] >> my name is hiram. i'm in long-term recovery and that means i haven't had a drink or picked up a drug since august the 13th of 2006. [cheering] for that i am truly grateful. for those of you district and a lot of people in this room and for those of you don't know is i lived in an oxford house for almost eight years. oxford is my passion. with that passion and what it turn to and what it changed to is the reentry program. we don't have a reentry program in texas but i am working on it. it will happen. it will take a lot of work between all of the cities in between all the outreach workers and all the residence. it will take a lot of work but will get it done because the

thing is when i came into oxford house eight years ago i was sent here by my parole officer and i was intended to stay here and i never intended to have anything to do with oxford. eight years later and i'm still here. i can go home anytime i want and i can go anywhere i want but this is where i want to be. i passion is to see, as curtis said earlier, to see men and women that are incarcerated have somewhere to go especially in texas. i do this also for my church. i go and speak at youth facilities, churches and stuff it right now one of the numbers going around is 85% of people that go to jail, county jail or prison will go back. they will commit another crime and go back. they have nowhere to go. they're not being educated in prison so that is where i think oxford, where we can do a great

deal with that it helps. one of the things that we want to start doing in san antonio and i talked with outreach workers there is that we will open a reentry program, reentry house probably later this year and we've got to get has to start somewhere. we can't be scared of it can be afraid of it and it's there. is you all heard the most of the morning and for most of the day probably 75, 80% in oxford house have been is rated at some point or another and if all of us to have somewhere to go what would we be? the thing is to continue that cycle is continue to open up reentry houses and continue to have reentry programs. it will take a lot of help from a lot of people and it's not just on the state people or on the outreach workers but it goes

down to the residence. we all have to do it. if not, there will be people not having anywhere to go and that is not good. for me it was easy, it's easy to keep doing this but, i mean, being a four time that i've been in prison at least one third of my life and now to have somewhere to go and have somewhere that i can be a part of and give back to is very important. that goes for all of us the main thing, i think, is working together and not just in texas. working together with oklahoma in washington, working with louisiana. we have to work together, the

whole country because there is an epidemic as we have heard earlier and there's an epidemic on opioids and there's an epidemic, as we heard from the gentleman from louisiana, epidemic with people going to be incarcerated. there's more people being incarcerated every day in this country than any other country in the world. that is not cool. that's not good. we need to get them back into society and give them somewhere to go and give them something to do. i appreciate you all and i will see you all next year. [applause] >> i think i reset it best, let's bring up that pretty girl from oxford house. >> hello, everybody.

my name is lori. my sobriety date is decembe december 2006. [cheering] thank you. on december 20th of 2006 i was incarcerated for an aggravated kidnapping charge and possession with intent to distribute charge. yeah. my bond was really high, 400,000-dollar bond and i did not tie anybody up or stick them in my truck is in. i did not have permission to have my daughter in about six months into that i was waiting on the chordate and they ended up dropping those charges and i ended up getting released in the middle of the night and i had to

transfer to another jail and i was released from jail in the middle of the night. i didn't have anywhere to go and i didn't know about oxford house i never heard about it but there were these ladies are coming to a jail ministry and i called the church had the name of the church that's all i had. i looked it up and i call the church and this was in july of zero seven. they came and got me and brought me to a hotel room and they let me work between the church and the hotel and they helped me district they gave me to the number of an oxford house and he will make it into the oxford house. four days later on july 30th, i moved into an oxford house. i am going to be taking on the position of the criminal liaison for the state of louisiana for house. [cheering]

i say that because i want to bridge that gap. there was a gap there and whatever i got out of jail district i never done prison time but i've done a lot of present time. it's basically the same thing. you are incarcerated. but i don't want that to happen to someone else that may not be as determined as i was or as fortunate as i was for this church to help me out. what we will be doing with the reentry in louisiana is i will be going into reentry courts and we have these things called reentry courts, have you heard of that work we have seven of them in louisiana and is strictly for district it's similar to a drug court but it's people coming out of prison. they have the same court once a month or once a week or twice a month and i'm not really sure does make it very specific

ports. anyway, i will be assuming -- there are seven reentry courts in the louisiana so i'll be attending those ports and i will be going into the prisons to do presentations to the inmates to let them know that oxford house is available for them and i'll be working with the department of corrections, secretary leblanc and i have been to several d.o. sees convictions that they put on so that i could let them know about oxford house and let them get in. i speak at those types of things and also set up tables like we have banners and stuff like that that you can go and put out brochures for a few hundred bucks we have our association pay for it. the other big thing were doing in louisiana is a reentry association. we have the state association and we have a reentry chairperson -- we have a

regional association and we have a reentry person for the reentry association, sorry, for the regional association and that person has created a committee and it's called the louisiana mississippi reentry association. what we are doing there is to have the chapters pay dues to the reentry association and we are going to take that money and help ten people every month have the move-in fee and part of the first weeks rent to get into an oxford house. [applause] i love this self run, self govern, do it all yourself thing. it's one the most beautiful things about oxford's house. we can and will. if you are tough enough you can

and we will. i want us to help us but i don't want us to have to depend on anyone else. that is one of the biggest reasons why i wanted to create that so that it comes from us, goes into our account and comes back out and goes back into our account. the other part of the reentry association is that we created a reentry resource coordinator. that is what we are calling it. it's for each chapter and that person will be responsible for working with the reentry committee for the association and also getting resources coming up with the resources, getting donations, collecting donations, getting in touch with dress for success, having the food stamp offices number available also and how do we get

a bus pass and stuff like that, little things that are difficult for someone -- getting out of jail is a traumatizing experience. it's a huge change and you don't know what will happen and it's really scary. one of the biggest things that i remember is that it's really bright. whenever you come out of the incarceration and your use to this regimented timeframe and you come out and everything is chaotic and bright. i wasn't there for a long period of time so i couldn't imagine for someone would done for, six, eight or ten years how dramatic that experience can be and how much fear can be surrounded behind it and why it would be so easy just to reoffend and go back to what you know. we can provide an environment that is not so uncomfortable for them. that is what were doing with reentry for oxford house.

one thing i want to focus on is a phone interview. the house does not do phone interviews and it's very important for people to coming out of prison because they cannot come in person. helping them get situated, like dan said, it's so important to make people feel welcome and comfortable. i've had people call me before that didn't talk to me when i first got there and that's an unacceptable thing. if you're living in an oxford house is your responsibility to make someone feel welcome. if you're tired of doing that, it's time for you to move on. [applause] give people a chance. help them. i believe that is what we are here for an answer were put on earth for is to help each other and get to the hard times. we are all going through a hard

time because we are struggling with struggling trying to stay sober for struggling to get our kids back were struggling to pay our child support and were struggling for all of the stuff and were trying to not kill ourselves in the midst of all of this. give people a chance. help them through it. anyway, thank you all. [applause] >> i don't have time afternoon to share a story with you -- that would take a while. i will say that behind that term, a person in long-term recovery, there is a whole lot of stuff underneath that phrase right there. i was hopelessly and helplessly addicted to crack cocaine,

marijuana alcohol. i was homeless in the streets, i was unemployable. when i say i was homeless, i would turn down somewhere to lay my head tonight because i had to be on the street corner to sell that next to me to get that next hit and that's where i had to be. that is what the disease of addiction means to me. sometimes we come to these big, beautiful hotels each year and this is our 19th convention and we come to these hotels and we sit in these chairs and we listen to focus get up and speak and we are like, wow, that's incredible and inspiring. what i want to emphasize to you is that this homeless crackhea

crackhead -- today i have meetings with the secretary of the department of public safety in my state -- just me and him. i serve on the governor's task force for mental health and substance abuse. i have chaired more committees than i care to list today, advocating and speaking of people coming home from prison, for people needing a bed in a detox unit, for people that need a bed in a treatment center, and definitely for someone that needs a bed in oxford house. there is something special about me. there's everything special about us. when you leave this convention make sure you go home and be that catalyst in the house that says we will do phone interviews

in here. [cheering] you be that person that is willing to stand up and say you are first in your last name and tell your story, society, state officials, they need to hear your story. they need to know that at the end of the day when they're looking at all of these numbers and statistics that these are actual human beings and they are talking about, lives are being affected. where would my son be today if i was not given an opportunity to return to society and be successful? where would my daughter be when she needs her daddy? where would your children be? if you can't do anything else, you can make sure that your oxford house where you live is a welcome environment and there's

an atmosphere of recovery happening in your particular oxford house and you are not going to tolerate judging somebody because you know, we know, if no one else on the planet knows that there is nobody in this world any better than or any less than anybody else. nobody. [applause] be that person that is willing to advocate and to be a voice for the voiceless and that reporter from the newspaper wants to do an article about you, say a prayer, and give them whatever god puts in your heart. we have to stop hiding in the shadows and to help each other. today, this town, even myself, this is the powerpoint today. we are the powerpoint. we are what recovery looks like we are what a returning citizen

looks like. [cheering] to get somebody a chance in oxford house. thank you. [applause] i don't believe we have time for question so now we will have lunch on our own. enjoy. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] the first portion of this conference on opioid and drug abuse wrapping up now for a lunch break. they are expected back about 215 eastern time for presentations is afternoon on acute care, long-term recovery and training programs for medical students working with drug abuse patient. our coverage will continue to live here on his into. coming applied at 2:30 on c-span is today's white house briefing with press secretary sarah

huckabee sanders. the president is scheduled to visit texas for the second time tomorrow to receive updates in the aftermath of hurricane harvey. also, both the house and senate are back on tuesday with reports indicating that both chambers may be working on a multibillion-dollar storm relief package for texas and louisiana. the hill reporting today that a us district court judge has slapped down senator robert menendez request that is corruption trial be recessed on days when the senate has important votes. menendez trial is set to begin september 6, more than two years after he was indicted for allegedly doing official favors for a florida eye doctor in exchange for private jet flights, vacations and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions but you can read more at the hill. the opioid conference is due

back around 2:15 eastern time, ahead of that here is some of this morning session. >> back in 1971, this postage stamp keynotes. this is a path we have been known before. the question about drug abuse and issues that revolve around opioid. today we will be going through the opioid crisis but what we need to remember what is key is to remember is that in the midst of this opioid crisis, in the midst of this growing numbers of individuals who are dying as a direct result of their use of opioids we have to keep in mind that this still represents a comparative drop in the bucket. 50000 lives lost last year due to opioids.

it is no small number however, we have to compare that to the 80000 lives lost due to alcohol and the 500,000 lives lost due to cigarette smoking. remember, the number one leading cause of death in people with addictive disease and recovery is. the major issue for us to deal with remains tobacco. the second most significant issue for us to deal with remains alcohol. the media attention to the opioid crisis is wonderful because it brings attention to addictive disease as a whole but remember what is happening is that there are roughly 3747 every day crashing and the media is focused on the car crash.

we need every chance we get to ensure that we are also paying attention to the 740 sevens full of people and that we don't just look at the car crash. coming back to the 50000 lives lost due to opioids let's figure out where that comes from. basically, we have a panel today and we all have 15, 20 minutes or so and i'm going to try to take as little of that is possible but i want to set the stage. the opioid crisis arose, if you will, out of roughly a perfect storm. three things went wrong. the first thing that went wrong is that doctors -- remember for many years they were reluctant to prescribed opiates opioids were told largely by the pharmaceutical industry that these are these new long acting pharmaceuticals, long acting opiates that would work well to

treat your patients with pain. never mind the fact that there has never been any literature to indicate that grades provide adequate treatment for that they don't work. there is no literature out there that says they do. however, the initial reaction that most people will have two receiving an opioid is that makes me feel better. are you surprised? no. when people feel that way they come back and ask for more. the doctor says good, it is working. when they come back and ask for more, if they are turned down, the patient is dissatisfied which leads to part two of the perfect store. at the same time of the availability of long-acting opioids started, we had

positions and medical facilities being told that the way they would do well, the way they would be certified and the way they would get a gold star is by making sure that patients were satisfied. patient came back in and said doctor, those i could and worked well for me and i would like 30 more and you tell the patient, no, sorry, you've already had a months supply of vicodin and i won't give you any more do you think the patient is satisfied? no. the patient would leave a black mark instead of a gold star. that wasn't going to be any good. in the years past we ended up with thousands of individuals taking opiates for condition for which opioids are not indicated. suddenly people realized this is a problem. we need to stop that. doctors were reeducated, programs that were giving out

opioids like eminem's were closed down. what happened to all of those individuals who were taking opiates every day could no longer get them to their favorite family physician. they left and they went to the street. when they went to the street what they found -- and this is part three of the perfect storm -- they found that over the past years the united states has turned from importing marijuana to exporting marijuana because we grow good marijuana, apparently. because we grow good marijuana and because marijuana is increasingly accepted in the united states we have an abundance of the plans and we now send our marijuana across the borders instead of bringing them in. the department of justice pointed out well, these folks who sold us the marijuana, they

need other centers of profit now and in order to accomplish that they sent us cheap heroin at the exact time that our patients could no longer obtain prescription narcotics from the pill mills that they use to go to for their opioids. they go to the street, there is cheap, pure heroin. unfortunately, sometimes it's laced with fentanyl to give you an even better feeling if you don't start. all right. these were the three steps that brought us to the point where we are at now. as we have been educating these clinical communities and we've seen a drop in the number of people getting prescriptions for opiates, we've seen an equal, if not greater increase, in that use of street opioids like heroin. we are not even close to stopping this crisis yet.

i don't think we will be at the point of stopping the crisis until the country recognizes that addictive disease is addictive disease independent of drug. you can't be a country that embraces marijuana and encourages the use of a drug that gives you better living through chemistry. at the same time, you have a crisis of did is addictive disease is killing tens of thousands of people a year. the crisis is killing hundreds of thousands of people with tobacco. in that context, you can't say, look, we still love addictive drugs and therefore let's make them legal. it doesn't make sense. let's go ahead with our panel. we have a great panel for you today we have doctor wilson compton, deputy director of the national institute on drug

abuse. we have doctor wesley clark, faculty now university at santa clara. marty walker, the oxford health outreach coordinator. lori, oxford health regional manager and johnny major, the researcher and clinical psychology professor at truman college. i look forward to hearing from our panel today and i apologize that they all have only about ten minutes apiece but we will try and cram it all that information for you today. will turn quickly to doctor compton bac. [applause] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. been a fan of oxford house for many years. i lived in st. louis up until the early 2000 and we had a new oxford house in my neighborhood. they were having trouble, the neighbors were trying to kick them out using illegal reasons

because they said there were too many different unrelated people in the house. turns out that's military and you can disseminate against people who are in recovery. i had the pleasure of being one of the neighbors and also a little bit of an expert in the field in some of the court cases. it was so pleased that they succeeded and it's been a successful home in the central west and in st. louis or was for a number of years. that is my personal connection to oxford house as well as a clinician, i referred a number of people and for them to turn their lives around because it's a long-term support. i think that is one of the things that is important for all of addiction is that we had this fantasy that if we treat people for a month or we treat people for a couple of weeks they will be cured, they will be fixed, they will be changed. those treatment programs in that process can be a wonderful beginning to turn a life around but turning the life around is a long-term process and it takes

months to years for people to reenter society, to reorganize their daily activities, for the memories to begin tuesday so that they're not quite so powerful and the cravings and urges to be minimized and frankly, for normal social activity to take the place of all of those problems. her family and loving relationship to take the place away drugs occupy so much mental space. that is why oxford house play such a key role in long-term recovery. i don't think we talked about that in terms of the opioid crisis. how we need to be attention to long-term recovery support in oxford house been a key part of the process, to address the underlying issue related to this opioid crisis which is addiction in so many people. that is my main points and if that is all you remember, that would be fine.

our job at the national institute of drug abuse, is to bring science to address the health problems related to addiction. how can science be this put on some of this relates to bringing information about it. we certainly know that it has played a major role in overdose deaths, that of course is what has drawn the attention. the phenomenon in destructive power of opioids in our communities in terms of how many people it has been killing. we've noticed that it's been killing people in different parts of the country that are used to having drug problems and it's been in rural and suburban areas disproportionately. think that is part of the reason that it's generated so much attention. it's population that thought, addiction is someone else's issue and now they are saying that it is their own community issues in ways that are visible and unfortunate. deaths are the number one reason that this has drawn attention. it is also infectious disease. we saw an outbreak of hiv

completely driven by injection of. [inaudible] this was reformulated to make it a little hard to sort and turns out there was a mistake. it pushed people to injected more regularly because it's a very short life and it doesn't last long so the inject frequently and this is also a part of the country that had absolutely no public health infrastructure. you had nobody bringing messages of safety and messages of recovery in support and treatment to that community. the result was where we had hepatitis c, of course, spread by infected equipment and hiv outbreaks. 4% of that community was eventually affected by hiv. not just a high risk group but the entire community. it was quite astounding. you have desk, infections and to add further to the complexity is not just opioids but the combination of other sedatives like benzodiazepines.

we know what's killing people is not just the pencil and prescription drugs but the combination with sedative agents. that's an all too common medical combination so someone of my colleagues are helping to fuel this by supplying both the opioids in the sedatives that help causes. is also neonatal abstinence syndrome. it's a fancy way of saying babies that are exposed in utero during pregnancy to opioids and we've seen the rates of this have rises insignificant areas. one in ten babies in charleston district that means every day they were saying babies who were suffering from opioid withdrawal when they were first born. virtually, we have reasonable treatments and we ways to help these babies but it's an indication that not only they may have some difficulty but the family needs help.

we been paying a lot of attention to babies but what can we do for the moms to help them turn their lives around and have the recovery that you all have found and see. okay. that's enough about some of the background and what are we trying to do about this but i love to say that we have the solution. unfortunately, the data doesn't suggest that. the data suggest that the number of people dying from overdoses continue to increase. first it was the prescription pills driven, by i would suggest, by economic forces. the power of profit for the pharmaceutical industry. without the illegal marketing process by pardue pharmaceutical company is one example of a company that engaged in egregious marketing practices to promote these products so that it meant that so many millions of people were exposed to them and misusing them and a number of them became addicted and had these deadly outcomes. the other economics are for heroine. heroine is remarkable product and we've seen new distribution route. i mentioned i lived in st. louis.

when i was there and working in the addiction field in the '90s we didn't have much of a heroin problem in st. louis. that is not true in the last 15 years. i think because so many people were already taking the pill and misusing them it was a recognition that there is an untapped market for a cheaper, readily available opioid that could be sold on the street and that is what herriman represents. it's a cheaper, readily available and it's now in cities like st. louis the dentist to have a heroin problem in rural and suburban areas, as well. but in all has two eyes. we saw fentanyl as an outbreak in the mid to thousands were there were a number of deaths particularly in chicago, philadelphia and a couple of other areas. all brought about by district as far as we can tell, one inside the manufactured conventional illegally. when that site was closed down the outbreak pretty much disappeared completely but for the most part. there are now tens of thousands informed companies that

manufacture pencil in china. it was legal to manufacture fentanyl up until early march and our state department and you heard from earlier that we're trying to change that and get cooperation to reduce the flow. we have a ways to go. fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroine. 1 gram, a tiny amount of fentanyl is 50 grams of heroin. that means it can be shipped in the mail, it can be shipped in commercial characters and that's a fancy way of saying fedex, dhl, other ways to ship packages across borders. it's shipped directly to the states or shipped directly to canada and mexico in the wall street journal -- they are all about business reminded us that this is a business. the raw product cost about $1000 and can be sold on the street in

the us for about $1 million. that's a pretty big profit margin. that motivates a lot of behavior. i think as much as we can focus on the supply we better do something to help people and recovery so there's less of a demand for these products. i want to end by emphasizing that these departments of health and human services and the federal government under doctor price's leadership has laid out by main priorities: new approaches to pain, the key driver was access prescribing of opioids. can we do a better job? yes, we can. the second approach will be improving prevention treatment and recovery services. what can we do to focus on the addictive process itself and eliminate it? the third will be can we save lives more readily by providing the antidote? you all have seen it. i wonder how many oxford houses have the antidote in their facilities. i hope almost all of you do. it's not that your residence -- you are all in recovery and it's

not that you have a problem but you will know people that do. you will have friends that have an overdose and having this life-saving medication readily available is a key part of saving lives so that people can make those gradual steps toward recovery. the fourth area is to our data. we talk about how many deaths we have for the overdose in the latest in 2015 -- we are now in september of september 2017 and you would think we could add numbers by 2016 by now. would like to speed up the process. finally, i'm pleased to see that research is being supported. i'm thrilled with the treatments we have. i'm thrilled with the cover he's and we need more of them and we need to know how to implement them as efficiently and effectively as possible. frankly, we also need better treatment. i'm kind of pleased with the

medications we have -- we have medications that can be helpful. but they don't help everybody. many, many people fail for on these medications so can we do a better job that is what i hope our research into both the basic mechanisms and to explain these conditions and how we can treat them better will lead us to transformation so that we don't have to see so many tens of thousands of people dying every year. thanks very much for mac. >> thank you, doctor compton. will move on to doctor clark. [applause] >> thank you. it's a pleasure to be here aga again. it's been a long time. last year. [laughter] i appreciate this audience will be talking again later. i don't have besides but i have

slides later. we've addressed a host of issues with these epidemic so far that we've been discussing but i'd like to take a slightly different perspective. i want to point out there's an issue called the social determinants of health that gets forgotten. this is also the issue of how to be adequately treat pain and doctor compton made reference to that but that's a large issue because, indeed, it affects people's desires to use opioids and we brought in with the epidemic a host of new individuals. keep in mind as was pointed out we have a 60.9 million people. [inaudible] 59 million people who are cigarette smokers, 22 million

marijuana users and not the largest group of individuals. the point was well taken. we have to deal with the fact that our society embraces the use of psychoactive drugs and how it should be administered and what we should do, that is another matter. with regard to prescription drugs though we have, according to the health and survey data 2015 and i agree with doctor compton that it's outdated data but there were 97.5 million users of pain relievers but only 12.8% of those admit to misuse. we have to deal with this issue -- anyone here have any pain? anybody here want to enjoy that pain? unless you are into s and m.

[laughter] there are people, psychiatrist, we need all sorts of individuals that i don't want to dismiss their predilections and idiosyncrasies but the fact of the matter is if we don't deal with the issues managing pain, chronic noncancer pain that we won't deal with this issue. i know doctor compton's institute is a working group that is trying to come up with substances that will help keep the pain developing pain strategies and the cdc has come up with guidelines to treat pain but the fact of the matter is we don't know how to treat chronic, noncancer related pain adequately. some people say take motrin but motrin hurts you if you take too much of it. they say take tylenol or acetaminophen. it hurts you if you take too much of it.

don't take the opioids. i'm not a proponent of the opioids and i can't stand the things but the fact is i'm also not a proponent of people suffering. in the discussion there seems to be a missed trust and distrust of consumers. [inaudible] there is mistrust and distress of the consumer and my fear is that we go from one end of the pendulum to the other end and we single out the consumer as the bad guy. we have prescription drug monitoring programs and we have people wanting to have access anyone to put you on registries and they want access to your information and they want all they can get and your phone is doing half of that with your gps but they want to know all they can get from you. identify the consumer.

[inaudible] we have people who are exploiting the vulnerable, the business mystery. doctor compton made reference to indiana and it was a matter of opioids in the matter of the site as a pain was also of matter of that means. i look at the jail records and records inequity for what was being arrested for what it i looked at the jail records and the bunch of people were being arrested for the enemy. they were just starting the math and enjoy the unchecked country and injecting the heroine. [inaudible] the fact is we start focusing on one substance alone as was pointed out, we ignore the larger issue. people are being abused, physically and psychologically, and if they have no solution they tend to use whatever makes

them feel better. we need solutions and i will turn to some of the themes that the oxford health district i see some of the solutions. you may have seen from your materials over the years that it seems like accountability, responsibility, integrity, honesty, community, report and respect enemies make for good community and doctor relationship. we can deal with those employers that are respectful of that see if they cannot get the 26 hours out of you. when you look at mineworkers and the pain just like they don't have cancer pain but they are hunched over for long years and they come out and all they have is pain. they were surprised that they use opioids. how did that happen? anyone work in a factory? i worked in a factory when i was

in college. after eight hours my mind was not and i was only doing it twice a week. could i do this every day because basically what they were interested in was the assembly blind me. so, my point to you is that there are solutions and the solutions in the principles of oxford house, accountability and responsibility. the patient needs to be responsible and accountable and so does the doctor, so does the hospital so does the drug company and the system needs to be accountable. [cheering] the doctor need to tell the patients about the risks. if you need physical therapy, you should be able to get physical therapy because that was one of the other problems. they were giving out pills instead of alternative solutions. the alternative solution cost a hundred dollars and the pill cost $5. what do you think the insurance

company will do? right. so, i'm going to wind up with the notion of gratitude because the principles of oxford house function wellin our larger community adopts those pencils. that way, when someone is back fighting, and doctor compton pointed out you should have the antidote in your facilities because people do crash and burn. it's not a perfect disease. the efforts are not always flawless. if you have an environment where people have opportunities and know that if they follow the basic tenants they have recovery on the horizon then, i think, we can deal with chronic pain. if we have a society that recognizes when you put people in improving environments but

they don't necessarily need to be drug for relief so your principles should be interpreted in the larger things of what we will do. not in other pill necessary, not another big brother surveillance system necessarily but a society that treats each other with respect and dignity and that holds people to accountability and responsibility and that diffuses every participant in that society. then we have our solution. thank you. [applause] >> doctor. >> good morning. i have some bad news for you. i have a powerpoint.

it might take a second or two to put it up there on the screen. i don't have a prompter so i'll be looking over here as i present. i'm john major, with truman college. i wish i had my glasses because i didn't know i wouldn't have a prompter. i'll be squinting along and then looking over and then in my nose. when i think about what constitutes a crisis, some of these come to mind. what are the prevalence rates. i like to go into more detail on some of the statistics or the data that were discussed from doctor clark and doctor compton. this comes from data on the national survey of drug use and health. this is data that was presented one year ago today reflecting 2015 data. i have a bunch of slides that i will be terribly technical so bear with me, i'll get through this is because i can.

the prevalence rates there's a lot of drug use going on. it's a very comprehensive report from the survey it classified it psychotherapeutic drugs into four categories. prescription drugs that are painkillers, also known as. [inaudible] we have tranquilizers or, think that cult must down, stimulants and sedatives that we use to help us closely. if you look at the chart there it is surprising that almost 45% of people in the united states are estimated for using these drugs. you might be thinking, oh my gosh, this is an epidemic. maybe they don't use those drugs like someone intended today. they throw away the drugs or give them back to the pharmacy and they take them as prescribed. i think the issue here is misuse of prescription drugs. the numbers get much smaller but

still significant. only 7% of folks in the united states are estimated for misusing their prescription drug. you can see on the chart those frequently misused prescription drugs in the category of psychotherapeutic drug is pain relievers. it doesn't get any better. when you look at people who use other drugs, alcohol included, tobacco, stimulants, folks who use heroine have a higher frequency of misusing scripture drugs. can you guess which of the four categories they tend to misuse more? painkillers, right. there is a lot of drug use going on and in terms of meeting diagnostic criteria for opioid disorder, you can see the bar chart they are in the very top is a hall. like we have a big problem with smoking and drinking but were talking about opioids today. if you look down and you see the sliver and why are we talking

about heroine, that's a small number. that translates to 529,000 people. what is even more alarming is that three times the rate more for other opioids. that is a thing i'm focusing on today. all kinds of opioid use and we seem to focus a lot on heroine and a lot of it is going on with other prescription opioids being misused. this bar chart shows initiation of drug use and it seems like these days people might be initiating or starting or even experimenting with prescription drugs and most of them being painkillers. there's a lot of accessibility and explains the problem use of these drugs. i'd like to introduce some data that was produced a couple years ago one of the most respected researchers gave testimony to the united states senate focusing on american addiction

to heroin and prescription drugs. she presented compelling and scary data. this chart shows the increase in prescription drugs that have been assigned in the last 20 years or so. folks, that is in the millions. i don't have my glasses on and i can't see that far but about 74 million prescriptions were assigned in 91 in about 20 years later it was nearly triple. you see a red and a green line their corresponding to specific opioid drugs that were prescribed. this is a very serious problem. this graph here seems, gated but it's pretty simple from the period of 2,922,011, a three-year period, it showed a trend of drug use across four opioids, oxycontin, hydra coding and heroine.

this refers to the percentage of people that they use to these opioids to get high in the past 30 days and if you look to the far left you will see about 10% of the people they use heroine to get high in the last 50 days and people are reporting that they are using prescription drugs. there were changes when you go from the left to the right and were talking about trends of drug use and doctor a hundred the doctor says in her interpretation of the data and i quote the emergence of chemical tolerance to prescribed opioids combined in smaller numbers with an increasing difficulty and paying make some instances explain the transition of heroine which is cheaper and in some communities easy to obtain the prescription drug and that's a concern among researchers. they're getting prescription drugs and it's hard to come by

because they're expensive and you go to the communities to get the dope because it's cheaper but when i read this something stuck out to me. first, look at this line. chemical tolerance to prescribed opioids. have you ever once heard someone talk about the chemical tolerance toward heroine? all the things that speak out to me is perhaps in a small number of cases -- in other words, the doctor is smart and she's a researcher and we have to be careful when we interpret data. we have to be cautious and conservative language but she makes a point that these things are leading to a transition to abuse. i've come across a couple studies where the data suggests that people are using prescription drugs and therefore it leads them to using heroin and its overdose. when i look at these numbers on this graph it shows changes over

time and trends. nowhere in this report that i came across to make reference to these changes as being significant and that is important. in research, we talk about something that is significant that is due to something other than chance and it's not a chance occurrence. and we think it has a independent variable but when i look at this chart it shows to meet normal trends across time that there's no rhyme or reason for the changes of vacancies. i have highlighted and from where you are sitting might be difficult to see two sets of data points that suggest that support the notion of a switch from prescription drugs to heroine. if you look at the turquoise color graph toward the bottom you see from one point there's a slight increase in heroin use and that corresponds to the

other lines above it decreases in opioids and you see that in the second highlight column to the right and the idea is people are increasing heroin use because they're getting less access or decreasing their use of prescription drugs. that is pretty interesting. she also says and if you read this on her website that heroine abuse like prescription opioid abuse is dangerous both because of the drugs addictiveness in the high risk for overdosing and that is great. she is saying that prescription drug abuse and heroine abuse are both dangerous and highly addictive but then we read in the case of heroine i and the emphasis here on the side that the danger is compounded by the lack of impurity of the drug and possible for contamination with other drugs. that is true and we know in recent years there mixing the

dope with personal and people are dropping left and right. it's horrible. when i read this and i'm a senator and maybe not as adept at research i will walk away the idea that heroine is worse for you and the danger is more. but what about the dangers of prescription opioids. that doesn't seem to ring very loud when i read these research articles and i think it's something that as researchers we need to do. doctor clark talked about credibility and researchers were about behind the curve but will continue being accountable for the dangers of this epidemic or this crisis that we have. and like to draw your attention to the graph. i'll get rid of it quickly but you can see there are at least seven points to look at where you can draw conclusions and the only basis i can see that supports the claim of a switch from prescription to drug

heroine is those that i just showed you you can take a look at other stats like these two. it shows that when people increase their heroin use there also increasing their prescription opioid use and another word it suggests polysubstance abuse going on in their three data points that show the opposite effect. you could draw the conclusion that prescription drugs are plentiful and because of that i will reduce my heroin use. as researchers have to be very careful in interpreting these data points. if you look to the screen again and look at the gold line. it shows an increase in heroin overdoses by 50% in the ten year period. that is alarming. we deftly have a problem. i'm sorry, i don't have my glasses.

in inclusion you can read there were seen an increase in the number of people who are dying from overdoses predominately after abuse prescribed and as researchers are starting to come around and see the stuff. it's. [inaudible] indeed, prescription opioids like other prescribed medications to present health risks but they are also single allies. clinical allies? that is interesting. one thing in the testimony is the fact that over 13000 people died from opioid drugs, prescription opioid drugs and it's not just considered an overdose. it's referred to an unessential desperate if you died by here when you have an overdose but he died by prescription opioids, it's an unintentional death.

these drugs are our clinical allies but we have to be careful and there's something to it because one of the first charts i showed you a lot of people are using these drugs and they don't have a problem. they are not in that 7% of people who misuse them and develop an opioid use disorder. even if we go with that and we know that more prescriptions are going out to more people have access to it you might get the argument that this might be the gateway that over time people will become more addicted to the stuff. what about people from the 12 step recovery? it is interesting about having them prescription drugs for any reason because we know they tend to misuse drugs, right? but this is where i know and this is where fact and experience comes in and i know a lot of people in the 12 step recovery and their pain is real and some research say pain management, not just for nonaddictive but it's also important for people who have opioid use disorder or other types of addictive disorder.

it bothers me that i know some people because i speak clinicians they would drugs seek that i'm in pain and how would i distinguish what is good and what is not but these days my friend in the 12 step recovery go and see the doctors say i'm a recovering addict and i can't use anything that will alter my mood and i don't want the euphoric effect of the psycho therapy drugs and their positions are saying this is not a narcotic and this is nonaddictive. this is just a muscle relaxant. they tell me, john, i felt like i was high. i don't know if i relapsed, what the heck? [inaudible] let me talk briefly about diversion. diversion is the after sharing, selling or illicitly using substances.

this is not just mere misuse of prescribed drugs. we are talking about getting drugs on the black market, selling them, not just using them against doctor's orders. three drugs, in particular are of interest to researchers are medication treatment drugs. they are drugs used to help people get off opioids, methadone. [inaudible] one recent study says that those who were taking. [inaudible] were twice more likely to engage in diversion practices. another study found that there was an increased risk of overdose most people engaged in diversion practices but that's cool. it's not that it's lethal overdose is a non- lethal overdose. if you think about it like playing russian roulette with us spinning the chamber.

the more time you overdosed on gleefully you'll get that much closer to the lethal overdose. perhaps one of the most disturbing report i read found that people who engage in diversion practices and again were talking about medication with treatment types of medication they feel that this is a positive thing in the vast majority of people on the study say that they were morally right to do so and that they could do so without getting detected. lastly, i know i'm running out of time and i have 15 minutes. i will try to wrap this up as soon as i can. thank you for the indulgence. this charge came out from the johns hopkins university public health and there are two lines, broken lines showing a trend in lethal overdose due to methadone and the top line lethal overdoses in relation to prescribed medications for their not defined of prescribed medications. this is alarming. we go from the bottom line to the methadone overdoses that

19994784 -- and by 2014 it gets up to three or 400. some people would say around 20 oh seven -- to decrease the rate of death of methadone and researchers are saying were seen in decreases in the death rates of methadone in a short two or three year. and there is something to that but when you look over a course of 15 years that's like getting a 6-inch dagger in someone's back, pulling it out 1 inch and leaving it in there and saying hey, we made a difference [. [laughter] when it comes to the other prescribed opioids, it's off the hook. i can't read the numbers.

can someone read that for me perspective 14848 over a 14 year period. in the good news it's only a three 100% increase, not a four 100% like the methadone but the numbers are high. if you look at the highlighted 2010, that the same level and it's a little higher than 2014 and those rates are comparable with what the doctor presented. there is consistency across researchers looking at this epidemic. so, if you look at the numbers for this report claims from my colleagues you see a lot of deaths due to opioids. not just the heroine, methadone, the method. it is used for pain management but is used a lot more as a medication to treatment. you add up these numbers an hour looking at about 18000 people dying from opioids, in 2014. if you take methadone, sorry, if

you take heroin out of the equation that's a huge number. a lot more people are dying now from heroine to prescribed opioid medication. one more study animals done here. one year later here are the rates and i want to show you the rates of heroin overdoses and prescription opioids, not including methadone. the number for heroine went up 25% in one year. that's very alarming. by over 30% for prescription opioids. this is what is going on in this is what the numbers tell us. when we turn on the tv or we go to people magazine it is the heroine crisis. there is no mention about how people are dropping like flies due to prescribed opioids, not just for pain but to treat opioid use disorders. we don't know anything about the unintentional death rates among those taking the test were just starting to find this out about methadone but nothing about. [inaudible]

a good friend of mine, eddie chapman, i met him this week and i talked about what i was presenting in the first thing on this person's mind -- is not an academic, just a normal person like most of us in this room -- the first thing out of his mind is john, you guys have the data, why are you recording the death rates about people on these prescribed drugs. that remains to be seen. vision, there is a greater access and greater use of grades particularly prescribed opioid medication. medications used to treat this problem are being misused. it's been diverted. the death rates continue to increase but we continue to promote these medications. now, i'm not a real doctor like district it's just a phd and i told my students i play one in the classroom but in my crowd, there's a certain ethics code, code of ethics and it's pretty similar across all professions but there's a thing called

benefits and looks too good but we need to cut that with another value, nonmaleficence, do know her. even if i went along with the idea that their views are a bit beneficial and i am not a believer and i wanted to be a believer but i am not. when you institutionalize it goes awry. let's for the same for the sake of art meant that these things do provide benefit then we must embrace it with not doing harm. i don't think there's a risk of harm, i know there is a harm. the numbers do not lie. people are dying from the medications that we are prescribing them. when we said since the 80s, silence equals death and we need to talk about this and researchers need to be more accountable about how these medications not just the risk but show death and. if we have that we may be in a better position. lastly, these illustrations from the '90s about taking dietary

supplements, the ada said this was on the harm it might've caused pales in comparison to the harm we know is going on with the use of prescription medication. so, that is all i have. thank you for the indulgence. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. my name is lori. regional manager for oxford house of louisiana and mississippi. [cheering] i am not a doctor nor a researcher but what i will speak with you today about is my experience. doctor clark mentioned something about we need a solution. what i believe is that the solution starts right here with

everyone in this room. [cheering] there is a little quote or saying that be the change that you want to see in the world. that is what i strive to do everyday is i tried to be the change that i want to see in the world of the people that i love the most witches alcoholics anonymous. people that are trying so hard to change their life and i am an addict. i am opioid addicts. i was addicted to prescription medication, heroin, oxycontin, anything like that. i have also been on medically assisted treatment which did not work for me. cannot say that it doesn't work for anyone but it did not work for me. my addiction brought me to

homelessness and incarceration. i lost everything. as everyone knows in his room, it brought me to incomprehensible demoralization. i was unable to make decisions and i couldn't put two thoughts together. my first seven months of recovery, or i would say sobriety, i spent in jail. when i got out of jail i was very fortunate to move into an oxford house. one of the things i have learned over the last ten years is to be open-minded to different forms of recovery. that is where a lot of the changes coming in. there is all types of different 12 step recovery is not the only recovery out there. there's all type of recovery out there. one of the things i want to focus on today is for us, as individuals and as a whole, to focus on other ways in the path to recovery.

they have this new thing called refuge recovery. has anyone heard of that? all right. they have smart recovery which is also a newer form of recovery. they have the 12 step program. they have. [inaudible] and of course the medically assisted treatment. all of those different -- there are probably more out there but those are just some examples. all those different forms of recovery can all lead to the same result and that is abstinence from opioids, abstinence from amphetamines, abstinence from any drug or substance that is out there. another thing -- i want to speak to you guys as individuals.

give yourself the time oxford house. i lived in oxford house for seven years. i know that is a really long time but i know me. you know you. you know that it will take more than three, six, nine or one year of recovery for you to change and stay sober for the rest of your life. i took that time for me. it was importance. i made sure that i was stable and that i wasn't moving in with someone that i could make everything work for myself. that is one of the biggest things that we focus on in oxford house is being self-supporting. that is not just for your oxford house but for you as an individual to be self-supporting and self-sustaining. and to not depend on the system to take care of you and having the food stands. those are there to help us tools. then i will close with this.

the other part is giving back. one of the biggest ways that i gave back pressure working for oxford house was opening houses. that is one of the most rewarding things that you can ever do is to provide six, eight, ten or 12 beds for people that need it. we have 110 houses in the state of louisiana and we have 20 and mississippi and those are the houses that i am directly regional manager over. [applause] we don't have a lot of staff down there so we truly depends on the people that live in the houses to open these houses, to make sure they get all the furniture and stuff like that but it gives you a sense of purpose and we have to have a sense of purpose distaste over. we can just work all the time and we can spoil around and not

have something that is going to give us a sense that we are changing the world. i just want you all to take us back to your houses into your chapters and stuff like that. you can make a difference in the opioid crisis today. you can be an example to your best friend that is still out there, your sister, your mother, your child. all of these people, everyone is different and every family member is different but i know that we can be an example of what recovery looks like. all of that will come from within and being the change that you want to be in the world. thank you. [applause]

>> how are you all doing? what is up family? [cheering] you know i like to see this

crap on you, you know? everybody in this room is 100 percent successful today. 100 percent. [applause] 100 percent. the, hey, you know a little thing, i'm saying this but a little thing on the pill bottle that says alcohol may intensify. do not operate machinery, but anyway, i'll get to that. what was kind of chilling and it was killing me up here because as we were talking about perfect storms, a perfect storm was what created the perfect form of opioids disaster is what's going on.

and it's not just opioids, alcohol has been a disaster for thousands of years. but opioids, the world population, the population of the world, simple math, it doubles every 25 years. 25 years ago we had three point something billion people, now we've got seven points, provide some real estate. the world population doubles which means the problem doubles. that's scary. so i was sitting here, everybody here has put together a lot of work to get here. a lot of people have put together a lot of work to put this on. for 42 years oscar has to put forth a lot of work to make sure that everybody here has a house to go to, see place, a system of operations,

there's been untold volunteers, chapter housing services, house president, health secretary, all that for 42 years, i'm thinking it just kind of dawned on me. we've been creating the perfect storm to combat this. this is the perfect storm to move forward. that self financed democratically run system of operation that catching everybody's attention. this is the perfect storm. this is one of the greatest solutions on the planet today and you are a part of that, please give yourselves a round of applause for that. [applause] that's kind of mind-boggling.one of the reasons that i got, i could qualify myself, this beautiful city, portland oregon is a beautiful city, beautiful city, anybody here from oregon? i ran those streets of portland oregon when i was coherent, portland oregon changes after about, it's a

different city. it's a different city that most people don't see. allthe things that are going on , a little bit when we had our world vision there, so going down the beautiful parks, if you look in the corner , look and see, and it comes out. and it's a whole different world. so it's always been there. >> and i guess when the famous thing when the teacher or the student is raised, the teacher will appear. there's also a recovery. >> involved in those shadows. >> it's always been there. the opioid crisis, i was a product of the opioid crisis and alcohol management, i was a product of that. the entire 80s. >> many jails, many institutions. i was and probably quite a

few of my family here has been the ones that they gave up on. >> how cool is that? because we were the hardest case and we are here together working together, common all-purpose. that's amazing. i'd love to see a graph on that. >> but this anonymity factor in things like that, that's great but the cool thing about oscar's house is that we are different in that we motivate, we're not only accountable and they were talking about the person that you need somebody who's the house manager. to give it back and give them some authority over you guys. you know, you ever had a piece of that and it's like that's the math. we do this.we vote excruciatingly democratic, we

voted from then and we can vote now. >> the motivate, the motivation and support of oscar's house has been unparalleled. >> as we have accountability, yes we have some consequence if you don't pay your rent, you might not live here . but the power of the group has been exponentially in my respect by the grace of god, it makes it and i make it there. >>, 20 years. i've been 20 years. >> just sounds weird to even say. you know, i'm 20 years all that crap. and that's what it is you. >> we are the kind of people who me and lori were giggling about that, we were kind of giggling. so we are the kind of people that it's like, if somebody says man, tony, he owes me but the money owed to me,

he's got that flock though. and he's like, where taco, we are not going to go to tacos house and it's not going to happen to me. that's the kind of disease that we have it's like, we immediately want to know where the hell flock though is. that's crazy. that's freaking craziness. one foot in the grave constantly. and everybody'sgiggling because they know exactly what i'm talking about. >> . >> that's for sure. and what i've learned that's been the most valuable thing in my recovery is that i should never ever say anymore. i got this. >> i've got it. >> i ain't got nothing. i ain't got nothing. >> what i say now as we got this. we got this. all right?

we're going to do this together. talents. and with this, i'll shut up because i don't think the graph and things like that. i'm so grateful every time on my butt wakes up in the morning i'm not in jail. i've got a license with my picture on it. i've got a credit card with my name onit . >>. [applause] but what i found is and i seeit a lot, people move in , it's kind of like smoking cigarettes, you talk to people but you go out and use a man, i wish i could quit. i wish i could do it over. they want to quit, they don't want that but they say is

familiar because they keep going and i smoked for 32 years and you'd think they buy me a hat, hell no >> . >> they wouldn't give me and that's a lot of money.>> and so moving into our family, we do this together. >> i'm looking at the perfect pair. and we, the only way we are going to move forward, when you give a person the opportunity to succeed or die, you're probably going to succeed. those are the only two options. and 1619 i got a story. and in 1519 cortez took and plunder.and the tc soldiers were like, i don't know, that's a long ocean or

wherever cortez lived. and the warriors, they were like get off the ship and burn your boats. the freaking boats. because you haven't got an option, you have no back door. the only way we are going to do this together is if we all burn our boats. got no other option. we don't have a back door. we got to move forward and we got to do it together, that's what i've got for you, thank god you are here. [applause] we've got stein coming up and we're going to go a couple minutes over. i want to take a minute to point out two things, the importance of recognizing that our strength lies with one another and the perfect

storm. we had a perfect storm last week down in houston and i do want all of us to keep inmind the fact that our folksdown there in houston , i've been in houston , don't have the ability right now to rely on their group the way they have been. their access to their peers, their access to their groups, their access to, see what they are taking. it all has been cut off. so our hearts go out to all of our peers in houston. we're going to open our doors to them and help them out as best we can. [applause] >> i, you guys. i thought of everything in that i was going to do and that's what we do in this state. we do the love and take it from there. i want to thank all of you for today and those who did because i think this is my

personal withdrawal program. i retired one month ago and my job. [applause] and you were so nice to invite me back. to let me keep going even though i'm not on the dependency unit but what's great about this panel is these are all the people who are part of the solution. i think 15 years ago he called me up and said there is a spike in methadone deaths, something is happening along the appalachian mountains and you are in one of those dates, why don't you get up here? they said there were downers and help people and treat people, to try to figure out what was going on and get on the tip of this iceberg so

they've been trying to work on figuring this problem out for quite a while and part of the problem that also takes my research and i say we would not be anywhere without back and it takes the reintegration to what we were doing because they were making it around. and now we have other health practitioners really helping that. so i just want to say that is not there kathleen in north carolina, we honor her and we are keeping her. we had 239 houses as of today. that means we started ... [applause] we started building those houses that i was talking about at the retirement rate and we are one of those states that still has e-voting and we

keep addingmoney to it . that means we are opening more and more houses but i want to talk about how the country houses part of the solution, particularly in our state and in other states. like pennsylvania and all on our advisory council. >>. >> there's actually a point at which i go to our opioid study task force so not only the house but we aid in recovery and actually with a lot on the stigma, the biggest part is trying to talk to solutions. so that's a particular problem where we have a lot of different beliefs and we all of them very strongly, we also have to learn to keep it together so i appreciate what we have done particularly in the last two years to at the

state level on our group to keep this justice and the appointee of the group and now our attorney general.>> he has taken it up, we have the other states who might have forgot how to improve the health assistance. and governor, cooper is now on the board. >> and we are really going to be working hard to implement those activity plans. >> i like what paul malloy said.>> that's what's important about organizations and what's important about all these is you have to have a particular style and you have to be a leader and everybody has to repeat that story over and over again. that's how you go and oscar is one of those great organizations. >> you know what, oscar has

his next volunteer, many of them from the state, we have also women and children, all the entities and so. >> on college, they are recovery and in our campuses and we are looking for our own and we continue to be part of the solution. >> and it is an issue with our vocation and oxford house and i thank you all for working on it, i know he has his position that is what the state needs to do or the agencies which helps and it can accept some of those that help us, if they can't, whatever areyou doing to improve . >> be watching for those, we had a number of those last year and you mentioned the infectious disease, just last

week it was increasing our syphilis and inflations where they had had to have it completely eradicated but we found that needle sharing behavior so a lot of power to you all and not to mention that as we read medication assistance, it's a new kind of provider that we have out there that people don't know about yet. primary care clinic, oxford house, they don't think about people usually, they should. theirs is a stigma to be associated with everybody up there. >> and meaningful rights and about the new group to. >> that's what i want to indicate that sharing. >> the executive director of the association of authorities. and i was public-policy chair but now i'm not there.

>> but i'm glad when i was asked to do this i was like oh wow, okay. what is my most recent report on all these. >> on the opioid issue and also the court. and that's what we provide assistance with so we the answer and then providing direct assistance to the state to implement something that we have to help us with, there's a lot of money out there, a lot that congress provided to the act. it's almost too much money, to do this quickly and there's a lot of ideas, and they're all happening if that money gets to be part of it without being changed but nothing changes there. >> which is one of our most typical solutions. you've got to make it work

and we need you to work with us like oscar house in north carolina did. to happen. >>. >> i just got to get to all these other pages and i'm talking a lot about but i didn't want to say that you are in part of the solution. what you all have been into. i think this is where i got the shingles or this is where, i have never seen this much recovery in one place in my life. and it's a tiny little group. [applause]. >> thank you so much to our panel today and thank you all for coming. >>.

[applause] thank you so much, it's great to be here and osterhaus is new to me, i've been in this field a long time. i wanted to ask paul how many drugs started in the ford administration but about the cost, you didn't know bob until later, because the ford administration was kind of quiet about the whole thing. and then we began to know other drugs are because of the crack epidemic, scare the hell out of everybody. and i unfortunately was not able to get to all the crack users and say use canadian club instead. i want to say as a follow-up standing up here, what paul has been doing, every years or eight years a new crowd comes into town.

all is always here, he comes in, talk to people, he educates us, brings us up to speed and really what he's don't and what you build is incredible. it's amazing. every administration comes to know the work of oxford house and i can tell you from austin, this administration we want to do everything we can to support you and fall right here, he's a living legend. stand up. stand up, paul. >>. [applause] >>. >> thanks again for everything you're doing. >> i will just want to say a word about paul mentioned the office where i'm serving as acting drugs are, pretty good

title. i like it. i was created in 1988 at the end of the reagan administration, the first drugs are in the george w. bush organization. the administration and then there's always been a white house drugs are and those of us who work at odc, i'm acting, i'm a career official, trump asked me to serve as director in march and i'm thrilled and honored to serve so they have a permanent replacement down the road at some point so we at ocd, we are about 80 people for almost all career staff, we are very mission august. we are here to represent the entire anti-drug community, to rally the country behind what needs to be done to address this terrible problem that is happening in the country. oxford house is a critical factor and we are so glad to have a partnership. i want to introduce my colleague, come on and stand up. [applause] >> so peter and jude and

myself, we are here for the long haul. it's not a steppingstone for us. we've been here, june and i have been here over two decades so we are sticking around, we are committed to partnering with you build oxford house and building other sober housing opportunities so kids have a place to live so thank you so much. [applause] >> i also like to say good morning to captain christie our coo and oxford house board of directors, and so glad sarah can be here as well to welcome you. so it's really wonderful to join you on the first day at the oxford house worldwide convention. it's so inspiring to be a model when the oxford house

was established of the road in silver springs. and we laid out for 42 years, while. 42 years across the country and across the world maintain their recovery from the healthy and well productive lives but i can't tell you how important it is now more than ever that so many people struggling with drugs and the drug supplies deemed so dangerous and so legal, how important it is to have a place for people to have a sober recovery, a community of friends, to throw their lives together and not just be drug and alcohol free but to thrive and to pursue their dreams. it's especially important institution and i'll say again, anything we can do to support and partner, we want to do. paul a couple times in this administration, he's always welcome. we want to get more states to bring the revolving funds and we want to build up the whole oxford house community. [applause] so neil has 2200

sober houses using the oxford house model and 10,000 people living in these houses at any time. the impact already is significant. gary, a round of applause for your staff. that's talented people. [applause] just becoming the acting director, i had the pleasure of meeting with people in recovery around the country and it's been a great honor for me. people don't necessarily know my name but they know the drugs are and i'm happy to share their stories and they sat down with people across the country and they heard about their journey and two topics have, all the time in these conversations. one, is related to recovery house and finding a safe place to live that allows

people to continue their recovery and the other thing is table employment and there's a couple things i wanted to draw on today. it's reassuring to know that oxford house is there to provide community structure and housing for individuals who want to stop using and maintain recovery. it's the hope of this administration that these people who want to stop their drug use and alcohol use find recovery, and anyone who wants to stop their use is welcome regardless of the recovery tax rate and whether or not it's included in the medication. there's no one path to recovery because everyone is different and frankly it doesn't matter how someone gets to recovery as long as they get there. [applause] at on dcp we support every tool available to them. options like medication assisted treatment. it's an important drug policy priority to ensure medication assisted treatment and it's

available to people who want to use it. i know that some of the very medications in treatment and believe that medications in recovery isn't really recovery but what i believe the evidence shows and what the experience shows is a lot of people have talked around the country is that it really helps stabilize people in recovery and work towards it. [applause] and i know this is excepted, it's not controversial but it's all about going to speak and we each, i believe we also are able to listen and hear other views and the dialogue so i'd really like there to be a conversation here other than people's thoughts but as many of you know, we have adjudications for treating opioid disorder , and others are less frequent because they last longer, up to four weeks in some cases and we

look at the evidence i think a lot of people do pretty well on the medications and it also helps reduce overdose deaths and use from injection but the bottom line is it really can be part of the solution. that's why it's so important that oxford house changes policy to be more inclusive by admitting people and really i recommend paul as cleaning up the subject and working it into the oxford model. these individuals using an ip sustain their recovery should be commended, i encourage you all to think about something you can add to your house as thoughts. [applause] let me move on to talk a bit about this appointment because it's interesting when i traveled around talking to people and

giving the talks on drugs that a lot of people asked me about employment and jobs and since i'm the drugs are, i just wanted to give the person a call and talk about it. what my problem is sitting down and talking to people is that the employment issue is really central to people's recovery so i started talking about asking about it more and thinking about what else we can do in government to promote options for better employment for people in recovery. so i understand what oxford house works with as well. i was in rhode island to meet with brookings to address the opioid crisis, i met a woman named hillary, hillary struggled with her addiction in the past. she's been getting help and in fact he told the restaurant what she's been through and there helping her and supporting her with her recovery. so the owner of the restaurant trust her, values

her, gives her the keys to close up the restaurant at night. tells her to count the money and trust her to do that and it's great to hear from hillary about how much it meant to her to have an employer to have colleagues and friends in the restaurant that were sort of a new family for her and of course that means the support of family and to pay her bills and to be independent, just how much it meant to her and i really think it's something in the country we need to do a better job at articulating the need for people to have good employment, 25 million people in recovery and we understand and referenced earlier, sometimes people in recovery have this in the path so maybe taking the criminal records and other things but we want people to get the treatment they need to stop using drugs, to be in recovery and to have has to

society ifthey have criminal justice and they want to do that , we want them to reintegrate, come back and restart their lives and get jobs and we are creating too many obstacles for people to get the jobs they deserve. [applause] >> i'm going to keep going. so one of the things that we've been doing is really trying to talk to more employers and to ask and tell them about, encourage them to hire more people. we need big companies to come forward and say that they want to hire employees who are in recovery and i will speak my message, i want these people side-by-side in recovery, people in recovery make great employees and they deserve a chance. [applause] so this is

something for us, we are going to feature in our first trumpet administration national broadcast, the strategy that comes out early next year and i'll be talking about and i think with so many people in recovery and the opioidcrisis, in the front pages , center has people in their districts and people unfortunately overdose the drums, we push it to the next level and to tell companies that we already have people in recovery, they just don't know it yet. and just be more explicit and to look at those obstacles and remove them, because people in recovery, people in addiction they are looking for you, they're in your family, they're in your friends, they're in your faith community and it's time to let them come forward and

get the jobs they deserve. [applause] so i want to turn and talk about some of the things we are doing in the trump administration for anti-drawing efforts and as you know, president trump, when he was campaigning, up on the northeast in new hampshire, he talked to a lot of people in the media and people who struggled with drugs, families who struggle with drugs he started learning about it and talking more about the issue and has since taken office, he's really made this a major priority and i can really, as someone who's been around, we've seen times when attention ends and flows a little bit on the drug issues, at the white house so it's just really encouraging to see the drug issue front and center in the administration. so some of the things that has already happened, and health and human services, $5

million up to state that can work to treat prevention in the local level, there's another hundred million coming out for treatment as i mentioned in fy 28. so we did those portions are critical, we are developing a national drug control strategy which i mentioned which will not only talk about drugs and employment but also housing. a round of applause for that. >> if you don't want to read the whole thing and maybe you can word search oxford house, i promise you it will be in there. we are looking at how we can target federal prevention efforts to the most critical drivers of the epidemic and major use initiation and preventative addiction. we've been talking about restarting anti-drug media campaigns, it's something that we want to do to make sure young people are getting

the right assistance and i always think it's really important to be very honest about drugs and i have a little major, i always tell them that you're going to die in your life is over, i tell them about the risk of using drugs and what the evidence shows and how especially young people under 14 start using drugs. >> if you happen to get heroin or oxycodone on the street and the

way they make counterfeit oxycodone the drug dealers and traffickers print a logo of the drug company on the pill, so you may you are buying your regular prescription analgesic but you're taking fentanyl and one mistake could kill you. i don't want to exaggerate the facts but the facts are there are people in this country that are making a mistake and losing their lives, it is a very risky business. donald trump as paul mentioned establish the commission on combating drug addition and opioid crisis, looking at this with fresh eyes and doing what we can to address it. there an interim report released last month the final report in october. we work closely with them, serving as executive director of the commission trying to make sure they have the best