Senator Hassan Speaks at Youth Addiction Prevention Summit in Plymouth

PLYMOUTH - U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan spoke at the Communities for Alcohol- and Drug-Free Youth (CADY) 24th Annual Prevention Summit in Plymouth. During her speech, Senator Hassan highlighted efforts to combat addiction and support people working on the front lines of prevention, treatment, and recovery.

The CADY Summit brought together prevention and recovery professionals, health care providers, law enforcement, students, and community members to discuss strategies to prevent substance misuse and strengthen prevention efforts across New Hampshire.

Senator Hassan continues to work to combat addiction and expand access to evidence-based addiction treatment. At the end of last year, Senator Hassan played a key role in spearheading the passage of the bipartisan SUPPORT Act, which included important support for federal funding for fentanyl test strips. Additionally, Senator Hassan helped introduce the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, bipartisan legislation to improve access to medication-assisted treatment by allowing more addiction specialists to prescribe methadone. In 2022, Senator Hassan successfully passed into law her bipartisanMainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act to increase the number of medical professionals authorized to prescribe medication-assisted treatment.

Read highlights from Senator Hassan's remarks as prepared below:

• "Thanks in part to the work of many of the people in this room, New Hampshire has made real, steady progress combatting fentanyl. Overdose deaths are down. Medication-assisted-treatment, the gold standard for treatment, is now much more readily available. And law enforcement officers continue to find new ways to stop the spread of illicit fentanyl on our streets."

• "It's important for us to note that none of this progress happened by accident. We made this progress because people like all of you in this room worked to make it happen."

• "While we've made important progress, we also know that there is much more work to do. One of the challenges of the fentanyl and synthetic drug crisis, as everyone here understands full well, is that it's a constantly changing threat. Every time we seem to get a handle on it, we encounter a new illicit drug showing up on our streets, or some other new challenge. That's why it's vital that we don't let up. We need to continue building on the progress that we've made."

• "It's also critical that we continue to ramp up efforts to promote prevention, including in schools. We need to understand which educational programs and strategies work and which don't."

• "Students often tell us that dealing with addiction on their own, without the support system that they need, cases them to retreat into themselves; they feel all alone... Any successful anti-addiction strategy is going to need students and young leaders having a key role."

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