MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — On a day when Republican gubernatorial candidate and State Senate President Bill Cole was invited to discuss business and economics, he publicly unveiled his plan–if elected–to combat the opioid addiction epidemic in West Virginia.
“We have a lot of things we’re facing,” Cole said. “We don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing. We don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘Well, we’ll fix the drug problem first. Then we’ll work on education. Then we’ll work on infrastructure. Then we’ll work on creating a job friendly state.’ We have to do it all at one time.
He wasn’t alone. The Republican hopeful was joined at the West Virginia Business and Industry Council’s Morgantown luncheon by none other than former Republican Presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
“You need to have people who are principal centered; that have practical experience, that can work with others to be able to forge consensus,” Bush said. “As Bill pointed out, in his remarks, you can look at all these things as huge problem or you can say this is a huge opportunity.”
Cole’s seven point action plan on combating drug abuse in West Virginia involves increasing mandatory sentences for out-of-state dealers, increasing treatment for the addicted, and targeting the programs that aren’t working and funneling money from those programs into programs that are working.
“The drug epidemic is reaching proportions that we just have to put our foot down,” Cole said. “We just have to put our foot down. We have to push back. A great deal of that is replacing hopelessness with hope.”
Former Governor Bush said he didn’t realize just how rampant the problem was across the United States until he started hearing stories on the campaign trail and even inside his own campaign headquarters in New Hampshire.
“I never thought a place like New Hampshire–this idyllic state that doesn’t seem to have those problems that they had been confronted with–but in fact it was significant,” Bush said. “Now I see it’s in places like West Virginia and a lot of other places including Florida.”
Bush said the stories were exceptionally personal and difficult to hear.
“In an hour long period, I had a waitress tell me their child died of an overdose of heroin,” he said. “The receptionist’s husband had died. The guy who traveled with me–his brother died of an overdose. Literally, within 60 minutes, I heard three tragic cases where families will be altered for the rest of their lives.”
“You think about that and that just takes a little piece of the entire family. It changes everything.”
Cole said his drug plan would be the centerpiece of his campaign moving forward.
“It must be,” he said. “If we can go out and create the most job friendly environment that there is, and if these job creators come to West Virginia and we don’t have that educated, drug-free, ready-to-go work force then for what did we waste our time?”
Cole believes only a comprehensive plan to address the state’s myriad problems has a shot at working.
“Burying our head in the sand is not an option,” he said. “We have to go after it. We have to go after it with every opportunity, every resource, everything we can bring to it.”
Former governor Jeb Bush will wrap up his visit to West Virginia tonight at a fundraiser for Cole.