Latest / The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show / Nation States: Family Lessons and Policy Answers on Fentanyl

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Nation States: Family Lessons and Policy Answers on Fentanyl · The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Nation States with Yates. The world comes at
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: you fast, whether you're in your house or the White House.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We aim to serve as your personal national security advisor
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to help you engage confidently in the meaningful conversations that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: affect the fate of our nation state. Today, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to engage in part two of a conversation about fentanyl,
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  Speaker 1: an issue set that I think is a profound challenge
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  Speaker 1: to the fate of our nation state, certainly to far
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: too many families in our country. And as I shared
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: in part one, it was a personal journey about the
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  Speaker 1: final days of my daughter's encounter with fentanyl. This episode,
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  Speaker 1: I want to share what some of the family lessons
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: learned were from that encounter and some of the public
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: policy lessons learned from that were. And so we'll break
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  Speaker 1: those down into a couple of parts of this part
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  Speaker 1: two of a meaningful conversation about the challenge that fentanyl poses.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to the fate of our nation state. So I hope
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: you'll stick with us through a brief break. We'll take
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a deep dive into a whole range of things that
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you might want to talk about with your family in
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  Speaker 1: advance of what we went through a little less prepared.
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  Speaker 1: And that what you might want to talk to those
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  Speaker 1: who seek your vote in this season of midterm elections
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  Speaker 1: about what they can do to help you, our families,
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  Speaker 1: our communities, and our nation state's better weather this storm.
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  Speaker 1: With that, stick with us through the break. Back in
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a minute. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Thank
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  Speaker 1: you once again for joining us for this meaningful conversation
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: about the impact that fentanyl has on the fate of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: our nation state. It's part two of a series. For
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: those who missed it, I encourage you to go back
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and listen to part one about the personal story of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: what it was like for me and for my family
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: three years ago to go through 12-day journey from when
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: my daughter made a fateful encounter with fentanyl to when
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  Speaker 1: she finally passed. Today, in this episode, we're going to
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  Speaker 1: go through the family lessons that we learned by going
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: through this that maybe can give you some ideas of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: conversations you want to have with your family, and then
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  Speaker 1: also some of the public policy lessons from this that
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: should inform those conversations in this election season with those
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: who seek to represent you. So let's dive into it
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  Speaker 1: first with some of the family lessons learned. Before we
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: got to the stage of being in the hospital and
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: having to face the realities of what fentanyl does, we
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: had been on a long journey of a loved one
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  Speaker 1: with what I consider to be a demon or disease
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of addiction. And so my daughter had struggled in a
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  Speaker 1: couple of different ways with a And I had worked very,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: very hard as a dad to get her clean, get
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: her treatment, but also to try to impose discipline from
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  Speaker 1: time to time in trying to get her life to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: some semblance of manageable and normal. It was always a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: bit of a work in progress with her. But it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't until we went through this journey on fentanyl that
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I could sort of sense a cumulative effect of what
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the challenge of addiction does to a family. You think
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  Speaker 1: of it, what it does to the person, and that matters.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: But it has an impact on a family, to a father,
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  Speaker 1: to a mother, to a brother, to a sister, to
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  Speaker 1: others in the near abroad. And that impact affects your
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: ability to think, your stamina, your resources that are present
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: for dealing with a crisis when it might come. And
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  Speaker 1: I encourage you to do a little bit of research
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  Speaker 1: about what this is because I think I had spent
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of my life with ideas that I had
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: it all figured out or I had it sufficiently figured out.
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  Speaker 1: And I had a bit of what I think is
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the shared stigma about what this is. And I don't,
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  Speaker 1: without trying to make excuses for my daughter or me
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  Speaker 1: or our family or the others that have been similarly affected,
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  Speaker 1: I think there's more to this than we might have
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  Speaker 1: been raised to think. And there's probably more that we
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  Speaker 1: need to do to help fight the challenge that this presents.
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  Speaker 1: And so that was sort of family lesson one, that
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  Speaker 1: there is a stigma that comes with the challenge of
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  Speaker 1: addiction and that filters in. But there's also sort of
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  Speaker 1: a fatigue that is built into you and your family
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  Speaker 1: in a time of crisis that is cumulative, depending on
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  Speaker 1: how long you have been grappling with this demon of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: addiction in your family. The second sort of lesson that
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  Speaker 1: you probably know is this division between legal prescribed pills
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and illicit black market, off-market, social media purchased pills. What
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: are they and what's the real problem? A lot of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: people think, well, fentanyl, a little bit can go a
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  Speaker 1: long way and that's definitely true. And so what's going on?
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  Speaker 1: Why would cartels be adding this? Don't they want the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: addicts to live so that they keep buying? And I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure that there's a degree of logic to that, but
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  Speaker 1: they're not exactly in the quality control business. And so
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  Speaker 1: a lot of different mixes can happen in these pills.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: But what you don't know, unless you get into the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: literature on this or you've had some sad life experience
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  Speaker 1: dealing with people who grapple with this, is the fentanyl
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  Speaker 1: additive makes these pills, which might be like a Xanax,
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  Speaker 1: a mood management prescription that way too many of our
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: young people are raised as a prescribed medication. They come
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: to depend upon it. And then when maybe they go
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to college or later in life, they're young adults and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: they're trying to get some of that mood management and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: they are no longer on mom and dad's healthcare or
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  Speaker 1: Their prescription isn't getting refilled where they are. And so
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  Speaker 1: they go off market and they think, I'm just taking
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  Speaker 1: what I took before. It's filling a need. It's helping
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  Speaker 1: me either manage my anxiety because of pressure at school
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: or work or life. And they don't know it, but
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  Speaker 1: they're getting something extra in that pill because it's off market.
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  Speaker 1: The illicit pills are very, very available on the street
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  Speaker 1: by way of social media apps. whether it's through Snapchat messaging,
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  Speaker 1: the TikTok messaging, other kinds of platforms. And it's quite
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the sobriety checkpoint for you as a parent to realize
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  Speaker 1: how big of a challenge this is. But it also
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: gets a little bit into the policy challenges of, are
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  Speaker 1: we making this problem bigger by getting kids hooked on
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  Speaker 1: some of these things as a legitimately prescribed medication earlier
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  Speaker 1: in life. Are we making this problem bigger by making
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  Speaker 1: the prescription drug market easy for some, very difficult for
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  Speaker 1: others to access? And the price is very, very different
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  Speaker 1: depending on your age, employment, what have you. And so
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the prescribed pills versus illicit pills, one of the family
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  Speaker 1: lessons that we learned, this difference. And If we had
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to do it over again, we wouldn't expose our kids
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  Speaker 1: to some of these things as prescriptions, if at all possible. Costs, effectiveness,
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  Speaker 1: and access to treatment. The journey I had with Christina
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: for years was one where treatment was available in a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: lot of places, but at great cost. And so it
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't something that was covered by insurance for us. It
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: might be for you and your family, but this is
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: something that you probably should want to know about. even
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: if you think everything is fine in your family, even
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: if you're just trying to be a good neighbor, a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: good parishioner in your faith, so that you are equipped
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: with real knowledge to help others when they're shocked by
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  Speaker 1: what they're having to deal with in this addiction journey
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  Speaker 1: that could lead to the fentanyl journey. But the costs
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  Speaker 1: can be quite shocking. The effectiveness has a lot of variables,
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  Speaker 1: and it takes effort to learn what can make it
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  Speaker 1: more effective and what doesn't. That is individual-based learning. Family-based,
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  Speaker 1: treatment center-based, a lot of things. But we could probably
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  Speaker 1: do better as a culture and a society to figure
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  Speaker 1: some of these things out a little bit better and
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  Speaker 1: make this a bit more accessible to those truly in
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: need that could save money in the long run. Another
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  Speaker 1: family lesson that we learned was how laws are applied
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: to overdose scenes. Well, I hadn't thought about it until
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  Speaker 1: it became a part of my life, but my daughter
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  Speaker 1: was at an apartment with some people that I did
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  Speaker 1: not know. And she ingested the fentanyl, was completely unconscious,
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  Speaker 1: unable to breathe. And they called 911. And when the
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  Speaker 1: emergency response and law enforcement showed up, no one that
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  Speaker 1: was at the scene could be charged with drug possession
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  Speaker 1: or other offenses because we want them to be able
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to call 911 to potentially save the life of the
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: person who overdosed it's an interesting ethical and public policy
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  Speaker 1: challenge that I hadn't grappled with but it meant that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the people who probably were present with her property that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I never got back the people who may have been
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the ones that provided her the medicine that killed her,
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  Speaker 1: I don't have a way to know, that they were
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: able to leave the scene, were not under arrest, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that the cost-benefit was in order to get her emergency
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: medical treatment and resuscitation, that we as a society and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: many communities make the choice that we're not going to
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  Speaker 1: have criminal justice consequences for those who make the call
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  Speaker 1: at those scenes. Interesting challenge. What do you think of that?
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  Speaker 1: Another personal family lesson was the challenge of oxygen deprivation
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and about even whether someone should be resuscitated. This is
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: not something that I think has an easy answer. Our
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: best experts don't know how many minutes someone can go
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: without oxygen to the brain and survive. There are extraordinary
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: outliers from time to time, but it's not infinite. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: by most accounts, even getting past five minutes, much less
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: 10 minutes, odds are extraordinarily bad. And so The choice
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  Speaker 1: that was made, my daughter did not have anything on
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  Speaker 1: her that said do not resuscitate. She, for all intents
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and purposes, may have passed away at that point. I
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: have no way to know. But she was resuscitated in
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the sense that she could breathe with assistance and a
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: pulse returned. And she was with that taken quickly to
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the trauma center of an emergency room. But you probably
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: want to think through as a family Hopefully no one
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: ever goes through these situations. But do you want to have,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: as a person, do you want to tell your kids
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: as they become adults to think about, do they want
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  Speaker 1: to have organ donor on their IDs? Do they want
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: to have do not resuscitate orders? Do they want to
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: be resuscitated under circumstances like this and potentially never come
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: back to real consciousness but be kept technically alive? These
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: are things that we probably need to talk about that
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  Speaker 1: you don't face until you go through things like this.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: There is the whole question of what do you have
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: available if you know that you have an at-risk demographic,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: someone in your family or you happen to be one
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: of these young adults that's in one of these houses,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: do you have access to the Narcan that can help
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in situations like this to buy time for the emergency
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: technicians to arrive and treatment to occur in earnest. Once
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: you have a family member who's essentially in a coma,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it's too late to think about, well, and what happens,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: what kind of advanced directives do you want to have? Now,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: as parents, It's our responsibility to think about that if
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: something was to happen to us. We think of that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: for aging parents and facing potential long-term hospitalization and sort
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: of end-of-life conversations. We often don't think about that for
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: our children. And yet, children are at risk of exactly
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: this because of fentanyl. And so... We had to face
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: some very, very difficult conversations and some legal issues to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: try to be able to get the right kind of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: care and to make final disposition decisions. Those were all
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: harder because we did not have advanced directives in place,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: power of attorney in place. We hadn't talked through what...
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: my 24-year-old daughter's wishes might be if the worst would come. Now,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I can understand as a parent, this is a very,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: very heavy thing. You don't want to have these kinds
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of conversations. But I remember when I was getting my
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: driver's license, part of the education was to show some
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of the realities, what really bad car crashes were, what
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: drunk driving consequences were, what distracted driving consequences were. They
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: used to have even worse versions of this in my parents' generation.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's the same kind of thing where maybe we do
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: need to, in a more organized way, have the shock
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: value education of these kinds of conversations so that our
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: children have participated in decisions that will affect what happens
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: with them, but so that we as parents and family
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: know some of these things so that, You don't end
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: up with a father and mother with very different points
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of view, both trying out of love and desperation to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: guess what the right answer is and what your adult
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: child might have wanted. And there you are. There's the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: need for vital documents. You know, when your kids become
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: adults and they live on their own, you know, it
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: can be a challenge to make sure. Do you have documents?
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: birth certificates? Do you have certificates of marriage and divorce
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in some cases? Do you have an accurate social security card,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: other proof of identity issues in order to be able
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: to deal with things? Is your child covered under your
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: insurance or theirs or Medicaid or something? There's all kinds
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of things that you when you're caught in an emergency room,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it almost feels too late to try to think through.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: But having gone through this, you learn a lot as
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a family and you learn about conversations you want to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: have as a family. And now we have them with
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: those who survive and we encourage extended family members to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: do it. The last family lesson that I wanted to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: share in this list had to do with grief. Grief
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: is profound trauma. complex, and better in groups from my
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: point of view. And that group means that you need
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: to understand that every member of your family, whether you're
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a traditional family, an unconventional family, ours was pasted together
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: from lots of different pieces. And yet we all experienced
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this differently. But for me, I had a very, very
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: good friend, in my life that encouraged me to make
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: contact with a grief share group. And that helped an
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: immense amount. And so for those of you who haven't
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: thought about this, who have people in your extended family
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: or community who are facing this entirely unwanted journey, I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: would give you a strong personal recommendation to consider the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: grief share approach. It made a huge, huge difference for me.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in thinking through things, walking through things. This is something
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that you're never healed from. It never goes away, but
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you grow and you learn to carry and you learn
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to manage and you learn how to talk about it
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and you learn with whom to talk about it in
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: some important ways. And it's one of those things that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: is a part of every single day of the rest
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: of your life And you need to get educated about
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: how best to carry it. And that, I think, is
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: an important family lesson that we carry through. Now, we're
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: going to get into the policy parts of this. Obviously,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: from my point of view, if you learned and listened
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to the nation states with Yates, you know that I
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: consider the border to be one of the most important
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: policy issues affecting the fate of our nation state. I've
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: said it many times. dedicated an episode to it, if
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you don't have a border that is enforced, if you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: don't have an immigration system that is really managed and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: has consequences for violating that system, then you don't really
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: have a country. But worse than that, not having a country,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you might not even have a family because you're not
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: controlling and knowing who is coming in and what they're
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: bringing in and how do you contain the spread of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: something that is an absolutely lethal contagion. in our society,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: which fentanyl and whatever comes after fentanyl is. But borders matter.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: And that's on the ballot. It's in our legislatures. And
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it's something that we need to have a real serious
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: conversation about always. And don't forget it. When you get
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: worried about prices of groceries, there is nothing more costly
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in life than losing a loved one. Let's get the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: first things first right. Law enforcement is vital, but we're
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: putting a huge burden on law enforcement. I want law
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: enforcement to be out there tracking down murderers, rapists, human traffickers,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: those that are doing grave damage to the fabric of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: our society. I still want the laws that are supposed
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to control the spread of controlled substances to be enforced.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But when we have large numbers of law enforcement getting
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: called to the scene of an overdose to base take
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a report but not really be able to prosecute anyone,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: and there's not really a next step to take for
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: law enforcement in that story other than that initial report,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: we're expending a lot of their resources in doing that
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: by having this this epidemic of fentanyl-related overdoses. It's come
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: way down, but it's still tragically high. But think about
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the impact on law enforcement. Supply chains have to be attacked. Ultimately,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: if you're going to stop the supply coming in, of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: course there's issues of demand, and we have to deal
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with those too. But if you can't stop the supply,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: this never ends. It just keeps growing and evolving more
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And more families go through more of what mine went through.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And we just can't have that. We need the young
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: generation of Americans to be healthy and strong and productive,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: if for no other reason, to take care of the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: not young generation of Americans who need to retire. And
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: that social safety net needs to be held up by
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: our savings, but also by a productive younger generation, making
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: our economy continue to grow and continuing to volunteer for
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the best fighting force known to mankind to deter aggression
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and keep us safe, and inventing the technologies that will
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: extend life, extend health, maybe extend our horizons out into space,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: who knows? But we need to attack those supply chains.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: That means going after the cartels for sure, and we
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: have current policy that does that, but that's also on
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the ballot, and you should make it a part of
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: your conversations with those who seek your vote. course, we
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: want fair and reasonable legal migration. That's reasonable. That's American.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Illegal immigration is something different. And we need to have
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a robust debate about not just are you for or
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: against a wall? Are you for or against immigration? It
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: really has to be also, what are you for in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: terms of dealing with those who have come into our
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: country illegally and and then proceed to break our law
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and hurt our people. That should be a pretty clear
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: category that we should be focusing our political debate and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: policy debate about. That gets at those supply chains. Ultimately,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the chemical supply chain for fentanyl comes from China. And
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of the progress that has been
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: made in lowering the fatality figures, number one, comes with
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: awareness and treatment. Number two comes with the significant enforcement
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: at our border that has at least paused it, maybe
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: thwarted it for a good time. But I don't think
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that China has done anywhere near what they could to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: clamp down on the factories that are manufacturing the chemical
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: precursors and the organizations that are exporting those materials and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: laundering the money related to that activity. Those are the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: areas where I think that special authorities from the Treasury
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Department probably need to be considered, where much more intense
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: negotiations between our president and their leader need to be
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: taking place. And accountability really ultimately rests in that relationship
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to cut off this supply. The fourth area that I
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: want to talk about of lessons learned in public policy,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I alluded to a little bit earlier, and that's investment
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and treatment. Now, make no mistake, I'm a conservative that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: wants to be very, very thrifty with public funding, of course.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: But whether it's government money or it's private sector money,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and I actually hope and believe a lot more can
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: be done with private sector money, in our society, much
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: more needs to be invested into making treatment accessible, understood,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and not carry a stigma of so that we are
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: able to mitigate the damage that this does to individuals, families, communities,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: healthcare systems, criminal justice systems, ultimately our nation state. The
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: damage is profound, extremely costly. When I was in the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: hospital with my daughter and the representative of the hospital
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: was talking with me, just, of course, worried about what
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the skyrocketing bill was for all of this. And they
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: were sharing with me what the reality is for hospitals.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: They have to expend an immense amount of resources for
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: these fentanyl-related cases. They take space in an ICU when
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the patient probably is not going to make it in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: many cases. And a lot of extraordinary measures are used
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: at great cost. And we do that. We have to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: do that to try to save a life. But it
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: comes at huge, huge costs. And what we invest in
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: addiction treatment and prevention, if done right and maybe even
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: marginally more successful, could save billions and billions of dollars
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: for many states across the United States. And so we
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: have to think about that, the burden this puts on
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: emergency response, criminal justice, and especially our hospital system. We
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: probably need to prioritize things a little bit different in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: our public policy if we want to get after it.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But those are some of the family lessons learned. I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: hope that it encourages you to have some sensitive but
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: very important and meaningful conversations with your family and friends
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and to be prepared to help those in your community
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: be able to navigate these kinds of things if the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: worst of the worst comes to their door, like it
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: came to me by phone on October 18th, 2023, to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: be prepared for all the decisions that have to be
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: made under those worst of circumstances. as prepared as possible,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: but also some of the policy lessons learned. I'd like
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to know what you think of the personal story. Was
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: it helpful to you to hear what my family's personal
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: story was going through the 12 days of fentanyl? Was
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it helpful to hear some of the family lessons learned?
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And did it give you ideas that matter to you?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Was that good? Or did you think, ah, this is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: a little too sad and dark for our conversations on
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: nation state with Yates? What do you think about the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: priorities on policy, front-loading investment, especially private sector investment in
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: addiction and recovery and treatment, making it more accessible and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: less of a stigma as a way to mitigate the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: costs that this fentanyl crisis is imposing on our society
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and our infrastructure? And what do you think about cutting
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: off the supply chains and the policies that are required
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to cut off the cartels and to cut off the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Chinese chemical suppliers? That's our deep dive on fentanyl two-part series,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: personal journey and the family and policy lessons learned. I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: hope this was a meaningful conversation for you. And thank
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: you for sticking with us for it. Please continue to like, share, subscribe, download.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: If you found a part of this to be particularly compelling,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: please let me know at feedback at nationstatesyates.com. And as always,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: you can follow on X at NS with Yates.com. And
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we look forward to continuing the conversation soon. We're going
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to take a brief break. I'll come back with some
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: parting thoughts. Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Thank
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you for sticking with us through this two-part journey on
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the challenge that fentanyl presents to our nation state. The
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: issue is, of course, close to home and personal for me.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I thank you for indulging me and letting me talk
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: about what I and my family went through three years ago.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: It's a part of what I believe helps keep the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: memory of my daughter alive in this world, but also
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: to make what we went through somewhat useful, not just painful,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: because if others can learn from it, if others can
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: benefit from it, if it helps get through to someone
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: who's struggling with addiction and they hear the pain that
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a father and a family and a younger brother go
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: through in this, maybe that can rattle them to a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: commitment to to go ahead into that program, to go
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: ahead and commit to a journey of recovery. And you
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: can stand with them by having thought through some of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: these things. It's not something that people think of in
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: terms of national security, but there are definite national security
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: elements to this. It affects the age demographic that is
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: most recruited to go into our armed services, our intelligence community,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: but also to go into our cutting edge services entrepreneurial,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: economic areas of industry where America needs to be leading
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to stay out in front producing for our people but
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: staying ahead in competition in the world. And we need
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to make sure that we are learning and growing and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: figuring out how to deal with these things. And it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a national security issue not just for the human element
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: of it but these cartels are at war with us
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: That's a national security matter. And I would argue that China,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: under its current leadership with these chemical precursors, is at
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: chemical war with us. And that has some policy consequences
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and national security consequences. So I'd love to hear from
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you whether you agree with my take on these things,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: whether this has been a helpful or not helpful conversation.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: And in our next episodes, we're going to get back
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to sort of what's happening in the world with France
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: on fire and a province of Canada, maybe voting on
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: an issue of independence and ongoing negotiations to try to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: end some wars that are happening out there in the world.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But this one fentanyl on my mind, in my family,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: on the ballot this midterm election, I hope it was
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: helpful to you to go through this kind of a conversation.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So with that, please continue to like, share, subscribe. As always,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: that helps keep our program going. We're deeply, deeply grateful
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to the audience. Until next time, I'm Steve Yates, your
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: host here at Nation States with Yates. Stay strong.