Opinion: The Politics of Drug Policy

It’s an intractable issue in the news daily, so the proposed, much-debated and now-delayed Senate Republican health care bill had to do something to answer the opioid addiction crisis in America. Add to that the basic political realization that in many of the states that supported Donald Trump and Republicans, a high percentage of people are hurting — to turn a blind eye would be a problem for America and for the GOP on many levels.

Many fear the Senate bill is not enough to meet a challenge that is intertwined with unemployment, the economy and more. Though, at least — and some would label it the very least — the uncertain yet compassionate reaction contrasts with the harsh strategy the Justice Department has laid out for other low-level drug offenders.

So while establishing a drug policy in America, one that would fight the disease of addiction as well as the crime and violence that arise from the drug business, our lawmakers and leaders would seem to be setting up a strategy of contradictions.

One of the holdups over the current Senate proposal is, of course, disagreement on the expansion of Medicaid. For more conservative senators, such as Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, anything resembling “Obamacare lite,” as Paul put it, will never pass muster.

But Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said in a joint statement with fellow Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia: “The Senate draft before us includes some promising changes to reduce premiums in the individual insurance market, but I continue to have real concerns about the Medicaid policies in this bill.” Their states have been especially hard hit by the addiction crisis, with many residents depending on Medicaid to fund life-saving treatment.

The two senators initially suggested $45 billion for the opioid fight, while the bill adds just $2 billion. Advocates say that is not nearly enough, especially when the counseling and mental health support Medicaid pays for are included in the essential follow-up services.

“Everything we’re talking about now, getting people healthy, giving them health care, is designed to get them to work,” Kasich told CNN. “It’s designed to give them an opportunity to have a better life.”

Their concern crosses party lines, with Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown saying, “This bill takes away the No. 1 tool we have in the fight against opioids — Medicaid treatment.”

Ultimately, because the two sides are so far apart — and that’s just in the GOP — the chance that a bill could satisfy one side without alienating the other, even with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell making a deal, is slim even after the July 4 break. By then, more and more people would have gotten a chance to actually read the proposal and react.

But if it seems a contradiction that Donald Trump and his Chris Christie-led Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis counsel understanding, if not a dollar amount everyone agrees is sufficient, while Kellyanne Conway controversially said on ABC that the solution is partly a matter of “will,” the decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department to return to drug policies that would turn the clock back is on another planet altogether.

Sessions has said his rollback to maximum minimum sentencing for low-level, nonviolent drug offenses is an attempt to lower crime rates. But it most closely resembles former President Richard Nixon’s harsh drug war that ended with minor drug users, most of them African-American, imprisoned — which was the point, according to interviews published this year with John Ehrlichman, his onetime domestic policy chief.

The communities Sessions says he wants most to protect have actually been devastated by harsh sentencing and mass incarceration. The majority of Americans in these communities, the same that were apparent targets of Nixon’s retribution, have not, for the most part, been on the receiving end of kind words from the president and his administration. Its guiding principle is to obliterate anything associated with President Barack Obama .

With a cutback on Medicaid services and tough talk from justice, there are few bright spots for those used to not getting a break, unless you point to the irony of Rand Paul. Though he doesn’t think the Senate bill is conservative enough, he also opposes Sessions’ return to harsh drug sentencing.

More contradictions in the path to a consistent and compassionate health care and drug policy.

Roll Call columnist Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun and The Charlotte Observer. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3 .

Heard on the Hill

Ex-Staffer and Lobbyist Took Pre-Election Leap to Antiques

A few miles from the Capitol, in what feels like a getaway from political turmoil, lies a piece of vintage British culture in Washington.

Former Capitol Hill staffer turned lobbyist Daphna Peled left her political career to start Pillar & Post, an antique shop in Georgetown that sells British antique furniture and decor such as tea sets, pillows and artwork.

The timing couldn’t have been better.

“I feel so lucky because when I left before the election, most people thought Hillary [Clinton] was going to win and it was going to be a continuation of the previous administration,” Peled said. “Everything’s dramatically changed and there’s so much volatility right now and upheaval, and to not be a part of that but rather to kind of be in my own little world … the timing worked out so well.”

Peled, 46, left the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, where she spent eight years, in October. She signed the lease for 1647 Wisconsin Ave. NW in February, and the shop has been fully open for a few weeks.

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“After the election, people were shell-shocked for a while and are still kind of recovering and figuring out how to move ahead. It seems to me, at least now from the outside, that things are a little bit more partisan and just very hectic,” she said.

Peled lobbied as a Democrat on telecom issues, which, she said, have never been particularly partisan with a few exceptions.

“From what I can tell now, things are definitely more partisan and tumultuous,” she said.

But she has kept up with her relationships from the political world.

“Everybody’s so interested in what I’m doing,” she said. “It’s exciting for people to hear different things and not the same old thing of, what are you lobbying on?”

After graduating from Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University Law Center, Peled was a public defender in Baltimore and then practiced litigation for a firm in Prince George’s County.

“This is kind of my second big career change, if you think about it, but this is much, much bigger,” she said.

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She came to Capitol Hill in 1999 to work on telecom issues for Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak. In 2003, she moved to the Senate side to work for North Dakota Sen. Byron L. Dorgan on his Commerce Committee portfolio.

She later worked for the Motion Picture Association of America for a year, and started with the NCTA in 2008.

“I always knew I didn’t want to lobby forever and that I had interests outside of telecom,” she said. “I’ve always had an interest in decor and decorating. Before my parents came to live in Georgetown, they lived in London for 15 years. I would always go over and visit them. I loved the British look and I’d always bring things back to my house.”

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She added, “I decided to give a shop a go. I didn’t think that there was something like that here. There’s a lot of Swedish antiques, there’s a lot of French antiques but nobody kind of sells the British look and we combine antiques with modern British brands and accessories.”

She is the owner and president and her mother is vice president.

“This is a big gamble,” she said. “I opened the shop with the belief [that] these are things I love. So, will this be a long-term success? That’s definitely my hope but it’s a big leap.”