Health and Human Services secretary holds opioid crisis listening session

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — The United States Health and Human Services Secretary was in Chattanooga to learn from people who are on the front lines of battling the opioid epidemic.

Opioid addiction is an all too common problem in Tennessee.

“I am in recovery and I am actually 3 and a half years clean. I actually struggled with addiction for about ten years and through my addiction I had three children and two of them were born addicted,” Mallie Moore said.

Moore says her last child was not born addicted because she went to a recovery house in Jefferson County.

“I would not be standing here and I would not be three years clean and I would not have my three children if it wasn’t for the drug court program in Jefferson County,” Moore said.

On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price came to Chattanooga as part of his opioid crisis listening tour.
He was joined by Governor Bill Haslam, Kellyanne Conway, recovery advocates and survivors at CADAS.

“This is a scourge that knows no bounds and it is one that is moving in the wrong direction in our nation,” Secretary Price said.

In 2015 there were 52,000 overdose deaths across the country and 1,500 in Tennessee.

“If you ask me the challenge that almost super secedes everything that we are dealing with in Tennessee it is around drug addiction particularly opiate addiction that we are seeing right now,” Gov. Haslam said.

Secretary Price thinks numbers in 2017 are on a path to be even worse.

“With the president’s incredible support and commitment to solving this challenge we made it one of our top three priorities, clinic priorities,” Secretary Price said.

Conway says the opioid problem affects everyone.

“This is a crisis that has left no state unspared and no demographic group untouched. We recognize that it takes resources and that begins with money, with funding. But it also takes heart to help destigmatize addiction so that people feel free and comfortable to come forward, without guilt and without shame, to say that they need help,” Conway said.

For people struggling with addiction, Moore says there is hope.

“They don’t really know that there is a better life on this side. Don’t give up until a miracle happens,” she said.

Secretary Price says the HHS budget for the opioid crisis is more than $800 million, which is more than three times as great as two years ago.