Moorestown Patch Letter To The Editor: N.J. Shutdown Is Bad For Fight Against Addiction

An open letter to Governor Chris Christie

Dear Governor Christie:

As the budget impasse has the State of New Jersey in shutdown, you are wielding an immense power to line item veto the budget if your terms are not met regarding the Horizon bill.

While you are exercising your executive authority, let’s review the items that you warn are at stake: funding for schools, domestic violence programs, sexual assault programs, and support for low-income college students, just to name a few.

As a physician, I do appreciate that you have tackled the opioid crisis during your governorship. I would also highlight that poverty, domestic violence, sexual trauma, and lower educational achievement are among risk factors that fuel addiction. By reducing or eliminating these programs, you will single handedly worsen the very elements that seed substance abuse, including opioid addiction.

You may say that you don’t care about approval ratings, but let it weigh on your conscience that the heroin epidemic may worsen with your stroke of the pen.

You have the opportunity to bring about real change in your final months of office. Please take the high road on the last budget of your term – if not for the sake of politics, then for the sake of the very people you have been trying to help in the heroin crisis.

Sincerely,
Jennifer H. Chuang, MD
Moorestown, NJ