Rep. Katie Hill, D-Agua Dulce, announced Thursday she will join fellow legislators on the Freshmen Working Group on Addiction, which is a bipartisan effort to promote policies that attempt to end the nation’s addiction crisis.
Started by Rep. David Trone, D-Maryland, the group is composed of 36 members from the newly elected freshman class with representatives from across the nation, according to a news release from Hill’s office. The purpose of the group is to come together to understand the extent of the impacts of addiction and to jointly promote policies to reduce overdoses and deaths.
“I’ve been open about the effects of addiction on my family and my community. We aren’t alone in that fight,” Hill said in the release. “Last year, over 70,000 people died from drug overdoses alone, and Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than from a car crash. We must treat addiction like the public health crisis it is and deliver real results for our communities. I’m excited to join this bipartisan effort because addiction doesn’t happen along party lines and neither can our solutions.”
Members who are part of the working group are expected to meet on a regular basis, hear from experts and stakeholders, make site visits to institutions focusing on research and treatment, and promote legislation in order to tackle the epidemic, the release added.
