During this legislative session, lawmakers allocated more state money to the treatment of Indiana’s drug epidemic than to prevention.  Today in Richmond at a ceremonial bill signing, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb says that shift doesn’t mean Indiana is losing the fight.  IPR’s Tony Sandleben reports.

The ceremonial signing of four new Indiana laws provides funding to places like Richmond State Hospital for better treatment options for drug abusers.  That’s treatment, not prevention, because as Governor Eric Holcomb says…

“You can’t prevent your way out of this problem.”

Holcomb says the state is not putting less importance on prevention, but instead making an effort to aid in recovery from addiction to prevent repeated drug violations.

“We have to make sure that, on that road to recovery, that there are folks and the resources available every single day.”

Richmond State Hospital Superintendent Warren Fournier says the legislation will send $10.9 million to the Division of Mental Health and Addiction. The final plan for how the money will be divided is not finished yet, but Fournier says some will go to expanding residential programming at state hospitals.

As far as specific programs for fighting addiction, Fournier has his own idea.

“You’ve got to change the brain, and in order to change the brain you’ve got to change the environment, and I think that’s where the state hospitals can really be helpful. I kind of foresee a 30-day residential stabilization program, and then, we have the ability to then simply commit if we find the brain has not been sufficiently changed enough.”
According to the Indiana State Department of Health, from 2012 to 2015, nearly 4,500 people in the state died from an overdose.