The governor has taken every public chance to discuss the difference between the heroin of 20 years ago and the heroin of today.
"It's different," Gov. Dannel Malloy explained, Thursday. "The stuff of the past was 30 percent pure, and now some of it is close to 70 percent pure."
The governor is referring to the drugs found on the street, but perhaps most importantly, from his standpoint, the opiate based painkillers prescribed by physicians every day.
Proposals the governor laid out Thursday, are meant to address curbing the state's rising death and addiction tolls related to opioid abuse.
"This is not a human failure. This is a public health crisis,” the governor said.
The proposals include requiring all opiate prescriptions be filled out electronically, allow home health nurses to dispose of medications, provide patients the option not to receive a prescription for opiate based drugs, require that adults be provided information on the risks of opiates, and to encourage state agencies to share information when it comes to opiate addiction.
One person who hopes more is done to prevent the abuse of opioids, is Jennifer Kelly.
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“I am a heroin addict. Those words are some of the devastating words I have ever heard come out of my daughter’s mouth. Those words hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said.
Kelly's daughter, Justice battled with addiction and now sits in a wheelchair with a serious brain injury, after suffering cardiac arrest for the second time. IN and out of detox and rehab on two occasions, Justice, her mother says, has lost her battle with addiction.
Kelly says she thinks Connecticut is in the right direction when it comes to addressing the problems, but more can always be done.
"We need proper treatment beds and essential services to combat this epidemic. Maybe if we had those services and treatment beds, my daughter would have received the help she needed.”
