Angela Kennecke: 0:07

On Overdose Awareness Day, Vice President Kamala Harris wrote on Facebook, We remember Tiara, Jonathan, Alec, and myself. and millions of others who've lost their lives from an overdose. Along with the message, she posted a video of a sit down conversation with the parents of the three people she named.

Dita Bhargava: 0:29

What makes it impossible to bear, Vice President Harris, is that over half a million people have died since then. Half a million people since our son passed away.

Angela Kennecke: 0:40

That's Alex's mom, Dita Bhargava. A supporter of Harris who has a personal reason to advocate for more substance use disorder prevention and treatment. Her son suffered with the disease for years before dying from fentanyl poisoning on his 26th birthday.

Dita Bhargava: 0:59

I think it was that voice in his head that said, listen, it's your birthday one last time. It's going to make you feel great.

Angela Kennecke: 1:05

Since that heartbreaking day, Dita has transformed her grief into action, becoming a powerful voice in the fight against fentanyl. She's engaged in important conversations with political leaders across the country, including Vice President Harris. I'm Angela Kennecke, your host of Grieving Out Loud. If you or a loved one are struggling with substance use disorder, please seek help immediately. With fentanyl in the illicit drug supply, every moment counts. You can find a list of helpful resources on our website, Emily's Hope, Charity. Well, Dita, it was a pleasure to meet you. Of all places, the White House. I always say I'm so privileged to meet so many amazing people, although I hate the circumstances that brought us both there. I am very grateful to know you and to have had that experience. I know You're living in Connecticut, so your access to D. C. is a little bit easier than mine. I'm in the middle of the country. And you've been doing a lot of federal types of advocacy work, haven't you?

Dita Bhargava: 2:18

I have. First of all, Angela, thank you so much for having me on your podcast and for everything that you are doing. You know, it was such an honor to meet you at the White House, as I had read about you and heard about you and all the amazing things Things that you're doing and, and you're right, you know, it's unfortunate circumstances that often us moms and dads come together in honor of our children and in honor of so many other loved ones who are suffering or who have lost also people to the drug epidemic and so so much for everything that you are doing. Yeah, I'm not too far from DC. It's like an hour's flight and I have been doing work on the federal level as well as. in the state of Connecticut.

Angela Kennecke: 3:10

Dita's advocacy work started in 2016 when her son Alec was struggling with substance use disorder. His battle began with marijuana and alcohol before progressing to painkillers.

Dita Bhargava: 3:23

Unfortunately, very readily available painkillers. Oxycontin, which, you know, that's another whole story in itself, but we know that over a million people have passed away since oxycontin was released into the market in the 1990s. And when Purdue Pharma family, particularly, lied through their teeth about the addictive nature and really pushed it into the system because they knew it was, it was catching on. They were making money and they knew they had a vulnerable, you know, group of really society that was ready to just take this on and, and not know that how addictive it was.

Angela Kennecke: 4:09

After her son was already deep into his addiction, Alec was diagnosed with mild bipolar disorder, a condition Dita believes he had been trying to self medicate all along.

Dita Bhargava: 4:21

He also suffered from depression, like manic depression actually, and, So he had started to self medicate, you know, probably around when he was 15 is when he started with marijuana and then painkillers. There were no resources around mental health as well, and there's just problems,

Angela Kennecke: 4:40

right? Oh, I struggled with that too. When Emily was in high school, and I would say the trouble began at about age 15, And I started taking her to counselor after counselor and trying to figure out what is going on with my daughter and I, we couldn't get any answers and we couldn't get any help. I even brought her to a behavioral health center at one point where they said, Oh, she's not bad enough to be admitted. So I think the system fails and as parents, you don't know what to, and you and I of all people should know what to do, right? I mean, I was talking to everybody. I was researching. I was. I mean, I think I employed every, but it's just so hard to get help. And when people ask me now, what do I do? I say, well, here are some resources for you, but I can't give even today some kind of blanket answer. Right. So you do

Dita Bhargava: 5:27

steps A, B, and C. Right, exactly. And that is because our healthcare protocols are still severely inadequate. And we know, Angela, that about 50 percent of healthcare workers stigmatize addiction and mental health disease. Yes. Yes. Well, if they don't think and see it as a disease, even though all of the science says so, the Surgeon General has said so, then, you know, how is the patient supposed to really get the help that they need. And this is the biggest killer in our country. So this is not like a selection. Right.

Angela Kennecke: 5:59

It is the biggest killer. And these health care workers, they're not trained. They're not educated. I've, I've been part of an effort to educate rural health care workers about stigma and medically assisted treatment. And this truly is a disease of the brain and had a little bit of success with that, but they don't get it in medical school. They're not getting it. it, and it is the number one killer of young people. So 49 million Americans. Dita admits that she also knew very little about substance use disorder until she faced it firsthand through her son's struggle.

Dita Bhargava: 6:33

We had to erase our own stigmatizing, really accept that, that this was not a choice of his, that this was really a disease that needed our help. It needed the help of healthcare workers. As you know, healthcare, protocols were and still are severely inadequate when it comes to substance use disorder and mental health diseases. And so we felt often very much alone, just chasing our tail. I knew the dangers of fentanyl because I was reading about it. And I kept telling, you know, my husband, my mother in law, that we've got to get him on a permanent path to recovery before the fentanyl finds him.

Angela Kennecke: 7:14

Dida, I think something that you and I have in common, and I was thinking about this after I met you, is that we both are educated. We both, you know, have a certain means of income, middle class. I felt this way, and you probably felt this way too, like this kind of thing couldn't happen in our families, especially the death of a child from a substance. And I think that fentanyl is such a game changer. But what I want to expand beyond that is that substance use disorder. can happen to anybody at any time. There's no limits to that. And I think once people really can understand it, and it took me a while to understand it as a disease of the brain, as I'm sure it did you as well, because you think somehow you're insulated or protected and your family is insulated or protected, just for the very fact that you know how to go out and research things, you know how to go out and find out about things, you know how to go out and get help. Right.

Dita Bhargava: 8:09

100%. And that's what I did. You know, that's what we did as a family. We called everyone. We researched, I researched everything. Me too. Yeah. And it was, you know, a lot of the treatment centers that, Alec ended up being, and they had no business being in the business at all. There were no standards of care. There still aren't, you know, and

Angela Kennecke: 8:32

I think that we need to stress, and I hate to interrupt you, but we need to stress that anybody can hang up a shingle and call themselves a treatment center. There really are no regulations or standards of care. Yes. So you have to be very smart about what you choose. 100%.

Dita Bhargava: 8:47

Yeah. You know, all you need is a sprinkler system and a certificate of occupancy. Right, you need some baby building regulations,

Angela Kennecke: 8:54

right, but not regulations when it comes to the treatment part.

Dita Bhargava: 8:58

Right. And would this ever happen if somebody was suffering from cancer, for instance? God no. God no. You know, I don't know about you, Angela, but for us, we actually, I had a conversation with Alec a few weeks before he passed away because I was running for statewide office in Connecticut at the time. And I was talking a lot about addiction disease, but I wasn't talking about him, you know, because this was his privacy. And I asked him, I said, listen. If the topic of your struggle has ever come up, how would you want me to address it or not address it? This is your life. And he said something that I will never forget. He actually asked me a question. He made a question, my own question, which was, Would you ask me this if I had cancer? And that's when it really hit me hard that I was stigmatizing, even just by asking him this question. He said, My friends have died of this disease, and more will die. And everyone thinks it's our fault. Like, we chose this life. I don't want this life. I want nothing more than to be on a path to recovery. I'm tired of this, but I don't get the help and I feel like whenever I relapse, I'm scared to tell anybody because they're going to think badly of me. They're going to stigmatize me. And please go out there and make a difference and tell people that we need the help just like any other disease, just like cancer or any other issue, just like gun violence. You know, this is impacting a lot of people. So I knew right away, Angela, when he passed away, our family may have thought twice as to do we actually come out publicly and say this because, to your point, how could this happen to a family like ours? We were good parents, we thought, and this was a failure, as some might have told us, you know, and that was tough. It

Angela Kennecke: 10:38

is tough, and you were good parents. I mean, the thing about it is, nobody would say you weren't a good parent if your child had cancer, to your point. Right. Nobody would blame you for that. But because this is seen as something having to do with willpower, what people don't understand is that the brain gets hijacked. I think we're starting to see that. Because this has affected so many people at this point, I always say we're at a tipping point. Many people are starting to understand this, but we still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, Alec, like so many others, found himself unable to afford OxyContin as the government restrictions on prescriptions tightened. Desperate for an alternative, He eventually turned to heroin

Dita Bhargava: 11:32

and there was all too readily available heroin on the streets and other drugs and heroin is somebody described it to me once as the exorcist. It's like when the heroin gets a hold of you, it doesn't let go and it senses when you are trying to remove yourself. It lashes on even stronger. That's how I felt that what I was visualizing at that point was this poor kid who. His brain and his body was telling him you feel awful. The only thing that is going to help you. And he talked about two voices in his head. One that would say, you need this one last time. And one that would say, no, we don't want to do this anymore. We want to be on a path to recovery and lead a normal life, you know, empowered by the love of our friends and family, a spiritual fulfilling life. And that one side of his brain would always get to him because there was so much pain that he would feel and that was the only thing that he thought would make him feel better. So it really had its clutches in Alec. And that's when I felt like, my goodness, if we don't find the solution, the fentanyl is going to find him. And ultimately, you know, that's what happened. Him and with Emily and it's just, it was such a game changer when the fentanyl came into our country. Yeah.

Angela Kennecke: 12:48

Even when I talk about heroin today, I have a little feeling inside of me like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about my daughter using heroin because I didn't know and I have such, I have such stigma inside of me about heroin because when I grew up, when you and I grew up, it was considered, you know, just like the worst thing you could do. Like only like the worst people would do something like that. And I know my daughter was ashamed of the fact that she was using heroin because she never. While I knew about the marijuana, while I knew about the Xanax, because she admitted to that, I never knew about the heroin, because she was, she knew, she knew, you know, how stigmatized it is, but I think it's just so much more readily available, or it was, now we know everything as fentanyl, but we're talking about 2018 when our kids were using this, and it's just almost unimaginable to me that that's what happened,

Dita Bhargava: 13:42

still. And, you know, I don't know how much Emily was sort of aware of the fentanyl scourge. Alec was definitely very aware of it. He even knew which parts of the country it was more of an epidemic than other parts of the country. And when he relapsed, he had actually been clean for about three months and he was doing the best that we'd ever seen him. And we were so hopeful. We thought, oh gosh, we've got him back and this is it. And we were talking about he was going to come. And live, you know, we have a small little place on top of our garage. He was going to come and live with us there after he had finished his treatment and then gone into sober living. And this is the other sort of real anger and resentment that I have. The treatment center that he was at, the problem with the treatment centers, and I don't know if you've found this, Angela, is that there was no transition plan when they were done and. The most vulnerable time in someone's journey, if they ever make it to treatment, is when they come out of treatment. Yes. Their defenses are down. They're now back in the real world, and this is where they always get lost, and they feel intimidated, and they don't feel equipped. And the treatment center transitioned him into a sober living home that was meant for people who had been sober for at least a year. He was three months. And I argued with him. I said, Why are you sending him here? Why are you transitioning? He's only been cleaned for three months. It doesn't make sense, but they said, well, the treatment's not working for him anymore, and we don't think this is the right place for him. And in my head, not even in my head, I said to him, well, if it's not working, doesn't that mean he's in a vulnerable place right now? Like, shouldn't he be, Either stay with you longer or be in a different place, but no, they insisted and he died three weeks later in the sober house. He was alone in his room with men right outside of his door. He had a package of Narcan sitting next to him because he knew that there were dangers of laced, you know, heroin. Which it was, but of course, we know that it doesn't work that way. You can't just like yell out when you feel like you're overdosing and someone's gonna rush in. He was too ashamed to tell his roommates or tell us. This was his 26th birthday, and, you know, I think it was that voice in his head that said, Listen, it's your birthday one last time. It's gonna make you feel great. And, you know, unfortunately, it was, I can't hear this aloud.

Angela Kennecke: 16:07

everything about that story just breaks my heart. First of all, it was his birthday that he died. Yes. That is just unbelievable. And then the fact that he died alone in his room because Emily also died alone in her room. There was no one to save her. Even though he had that life saving tool of Narcan with him. Right. Somebody would have had to administer it. You can't administer it to yourself. You can't control that when your system starts to shut down, your lungs and your heart and everything starts to shut down. Right. I mean, it's just so tragic and so unnecessary, and both of our kids were failed so many steps along the way.

Dita Bhargava: 16:45

Hundreds of thousands of other kids.

Angela Kennecke: 16:47

And not just our kids. And not just our kids. So many people are failed. And then on top of that, even though they tend to be failed by the legal system, in Emily's case, her case was not failed by the legal system. We did receive some justice. by the people dealing and selling and providing heroin laced with fentanyl. But what about an Alex case? Was anybody prosecuted?

Dita Bhargava: 17:11

Nobody was prosecuted. And this is also the problem, Angela. There was no coordinated effort. You know, we have an idea as to where he purchased it. We thought it was in Hartford. Of course you

Angela Kennecke: 17:21

do.

Dita Bhargava: 17:21

Love, Connecticut. And we pursued it through the detective and They just couldn't, they looked through his phone, you know, they used these burn phones, and so they just could not, they said, listen, we just, we're up against, you know, the federal laws, we can't, the FBI will not coordinate with us, and, you know, there was just zero coordination on tracking these people down. You know, this was in 2018 when, right, you know, this was the previous administration, but there was zero, you know, zero coordination whatsoever. It was just, these people were getting away with literal murder.

Angela Kennecke: 17:58

Well, they are. And they still are. And I don't care who's in office. It seems to me like when it comes to law enforcement or local law, I talk to so many parents who are like, Oh, there's the stigma from the officers themselves who are like, Oh, it's just another druggie who did this to themselves. And I'm using that language. Yeah, I know it's not preferred language, but that is the language other parents have heard. Right. And so there's still not always the willingness to put the time and resources to prosecuting somebody. And then, Even if there is, sometimes it is very difficult to do and to follow through with an actual conviction. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope Memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, and friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on MoreThanJustANumber. org In order to make real change, DITA believes we need a complete shift in perspective, one that spans from law enforcement to treatment approaches, and a stronger emphasis on education. It just drives me insane when people say, shut down the border. And I just want to pull my hair out because I want to say, Oh my God, if that was the answer, if it was that simple, you know, we would do that. I mean, if that was that simple that, but it's not because there's so many moving pieces here, but I do want to talk about your advocacy. What's most important to you, what you've been doing and what you think needs to happen. And we're seeing overdose deaths drop, which is great. However, in my community, In August, they were up 70%. Now I just checked with our police chief and they're up 42%. So I think that's because you're on the East Coast. And like I said, I'm in the middle of the country and we're doing our best to distribute free naloxone as much as possible. But of course, we're behind from the coasts. because it just became over the counter and we didn't have the access to it when it wasn't. So, anyway, having said all that, I do want to hear about your advocacy and what you're

Dita Bhargava: 20:23

doing. Well, I'm so sorry to hear about those rates, you know, going up in your community. That is so unacceptable and It's a multi pronged issue, and it needs a multi pronged approach. So, you talked about the border, and yes, that drives me crazy too, that people say, well, shut down the borders, and suddenly, everybody who has substance use disorder, suddenly a light will go on, and they're all going to be okay. That's not going to happen. A disease of the brain that needs, you know, proper health care protocols shutting down the border, first of all, not only wouldn't make the disorder go away, but it wouldn't make the fence. I'll go away. As we know, over 90 percent of the fentanyl that comes into our country is coming in through legal ports of entry. And then through U. S. mail. That's where we need to put our focus, is where the fentanyl is coming in from. And I will tell you, I was down at the border in Arizona about a month ago, because our current vice president, Kamala Harris, was actually announcing her policies regarding the border, and specifically regarding fentanyl. And, you know, if you haven't had a chance, Angela, and like, I don't, I don't want to politicize anything, but I do think it's important to look at policies, what policies exist now and what policies are being proposed. She has a very, very strong border policy that she is putting forward and very strong fentanyl related policy that she's putting forward. And I was really, really happy to hear about this plan because first we need a plan and then we need execution on that plan. And the current administration needs to do so much more. As we know, the numbers are coming down, not in your community, and that, I hope, is next. But overall, as we know, Angela, for the first time in five years, overdose rates nationally are falling. In Connecticut, they're down by 30%.

Angela Kennecke: 22:16

Wow, that's fantastic.

Dita Bhargava: 22:18

Yes. And in other parts of the country, every month they're coming down. I don't think that's coincidence. I think it's because in the last three and a half years. Funding has increased by 40%. So over 83 billion have been spent on prevention, treatment, recovery. We need that money and we need more. On top of that, I think to the tune of 150 billion is being spent on just the fentanyl problem itself. We need that money. We can't do things without the funding and we can't get the funding if we're not starting to break the barriers of stigma and legislators and leaders are not seeing this as a disease. So I'm happy about this. I'm going to, you know, congratulate the administration and celebrate this, but we need so much more. So what we're doing in Connecticut is we're advocating for a bill that would allow overdose prevention centers to be open. Some people call them safe consumption sites. I can tell you right now, Angela, that night that Alec was struggling when he relapsed, when he felt like nothing is going to make me feel better, that side of his brain that told him this, but he was too ashamed to tell his roommates, he was too ashamed to call us. That if he had a safe place to go where someone could reverse his overdose because that Narcan package that was sitting next to him by his bedside that nobody knew to use, if somebody knew to use that, he would be alive today. He would most likely, you know, he would have been a loving son, of course, a brother. Probably a husband, possibly a father, so many generations have been impacted by this one, one death that could have been prevented if he had a safe place to go, where he wasn't being judged, where people were just there to help him if he overdosed, and also give him the education that he may not have a lot, he knew that there were treatment centers, a lot of people don't know think that there's any other life possible than the one that they're leading. So they're living on the streets and they're doing this until they die. If we found a place for them to go where we could keep them alive and have an opportunity to educate them, it would be a game changer. And we've seen this because we've seen it in European countries. They've seen it in Canada, in Portugal, they reversed their heroin epidemic by 90 percent in seven years. And it was one of the worst in the world. And it was through these harm reduction policies through like policemen who were once a bridge to jail are now a bridge to services. That's what we need in our country.

Angela Kennecke: 24:51

So, you know, that many, many people strongly disagree with that and they are vehemently opposed to safe injection sites or sites where drugs are allowed and people are allowed to use it. They see it as enabling people and, you know, horrible things are happening, encouraging drug use, and so have you encountered those people and have you been able to convince them of your stance on this? Right.

Dita Bhargava: 25:16

So a couple things here. You're right. There are a lot of people vehemently opposed to this. I feel like it's an enabling thing. In fact, I was last year on a CNN town hall, which CNN did their first program on fentanyl, which took a long time, but at least they did it, you know, and there needs to be more of this. Sarah Lindsey Graham was on the program. He was one of the speakers and I had a one on one with him and I told him about Alec and I said, look, I strongly believe he would be here today if he had a safe, nonjudgmental place to go. You see, he had talked about the scourge of fentanyl and how we had to really attack it. His solution was to go into Mexico and bomb all of these, you know, places. I remember that. Yeah, I remember

Angela Kennecke: 25:56

that.

Dita Bhargava: 25:56

I don't agree with that. They will spring up somewhere else. You know, that's not, we need to get to the root of the problem.

Angela Kennecke: 26:01

Yeah, we need to lessen demand. We need to stop the demand.

Dita Bhargava: 26:04

Correct. So when I asked him particularly if he would support the site, his body language shifted. He looked very uncomfortable and he said, I don't understand your question. And then I repeated the question, tried to make it clear for him, and he said, No, ma'am. I don't think that's gonna work. He looked at me like I had two heads. He didn't know how I could be asking something just so ridiculous.

Angela Kennecke: 26:29

Here's a clip from that conversation on CNN.

Senator Lindsey Graham: 26:34

I really don't understand the question because we're not talking about injections here. We're talking about people taking a pill. Thinking it was Percocet, it wound up being Fentanyl. The bottom line is But they could take the pill

Dita Bhargava: 26:46

in the safe injection facility. The whole point is that they would not die if they were doing it safely where people could help them with Narcan and, and watch over them. And it would give them the opportunity to eventually, my, my son died because Nobody was there to help him. He had Narcan all around him and nobody knew he was overdosing. But if he knew there was a safe place to take his drug of choice, he would be alive today because he wanted nothing more than to be on a path of recovery and, and enjoy the love of his friends and, and his family. Uh,

Senator Lindsey Graham: 27:19

to be honest with you, ma'am, no, I don't think that's a very good idea at all. I don't think there is a safe place to do this.

Dita Bhargava: 27:27

It's too bad, Senator, because 100, 000 people is a lot of people in our country that could be alive if they were given the safe place to, to, I just, I don't think that's the

Senator Lindsey Graham: 27:36

answer. Thank you for your question.

Angela Kennecke: 27:42

If you'd like to watch the CNN video, we posted a link in our show notes of this podcast while you're there. We'd appreciate it. If you take a moment to rate review and share this episode with friends and family. It helps us further our mission to raise awareness about the fentanyl crisis, decrease the stigma surrounding substance use disorder, and therefore increase the number of people getting into treatment.

Dita Bhargava: 28:14

So to your question, Angela, the research and the science all show that There is no enabling here. Somebody who suffers from substance use disorder suffers from that disorder. Just because you provide a place to get chemotherapy for a cancer patient, doesn't mean you're enabling the disease. The disease exists, you're just trying to keep this person alive and get them onto a path of remission. It's exactly the same thing. This disease doesn't just magically go away or start because you've kept this person alive. You're just giving that person the chance to actually find the right health care protocols to get them on a path of recovery. And many people have found their way. I have friends of Alex who are still very good friends of ours. who have been sober for seven years and people have been sober for decades. It happens, but we have to help them get there just like any other disease. And all of the research will show this.

Angela Kennecke: 29:16

And so you're working on getting one of these sites in Connecticut. They are in your neighboring states, correct?

Dita Bhargava: 29:22

In my neighboring states, so New York opened this up a few years ago. They have two centers. It's called OnSite. And they have literally saved thousands of lives already by reversing overdose. By the way, not a single person has ever passed away in any of these sites. In Canada, they've been open for 20 years. Thousands and thousands of overdoses reversed. Not a single person has died in one of these sites.

Angela Kennecke: 29:47

So, that's huge. And I think the feelings on this are very divided among political lines, right? I live in a red state where I think it'd be very hard to convince people to put something like this in my state. And I wonder, even if people see success in other states or it's working in other places, if it could happen everywhere.

Dita Bhargava: 30:11

So I will tell you that I'm part of a lot of grassroots organizations. There's one in particular where we have representation from every single state. And I feel like. The culture is shifting on this particular issue. When you ask parents who have lost their child and regardless of their political aisle, I am definitely seeing a shift in their thoughts about having a safe place for people to go. Because when they think about their own child that night, that day, a lot of them end up dying alone. The fact that they could have been in a safe place and not dying alone and actually been alive and their lives saved, they are starting to see it. differently. So many parents out there now, unfortunately, who have lost so

Angela Kennecke: 31:00

many of us. Yeah, so many of us. And my daughter, I mentioned she was alone and we were three days away from holding an intervention. In fact, we were writing our letters day that evening that she died. And so Yeah, we didn't get that chance, and I would give anything to have had that chance, and not that there would be any guarantee that she would have gone to treatment, or, you know, she would have gotten into recovery, or she wouldn't have relapsed. There's no guarantees with any of those things, but just to have the chance, just a chance to keep her alive. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

Dita Bhargava: 31:32

important.

Angela Kennecke: 31:37

Along with safe injection sites, DITA believes the country urgently needs more programs focused on mental health and substance use disorder prevention. Right now, DITA, who previously worked as a top executive for Fortune 500 companies, is working on getting her master's degree in public health.

Dita Bhargava: 31:57

I just started in July. I haven't been to school in 30 years. Good for you! It's been very rewarding so far. I'm doing it at Yale, so right here in Connecticut, and, uh, so we were talking about this recently in one of the courses that I'm taking, it's called Frontiers of Public Health, just about the fact that there's practically zero education in medical school and also in public health schools about this disease. There really ought to be at least a unit on it. When so many types of doctors are having to deal with patients who suffer from mental health and addiction disease. Actually, worldwide, one in eight people suffer from mental health disorder. That's a lot. That's like over a billion people, you know, so it is a real, real demand. And so we need as medical and healthcare professionals to be educated about this because it's really a pandemic at this point.

Angela Kennecke: 32:50

It is. It is. Epidemic, pandemic, whatever you want to call it, it's definitely. Something that needs our attention and needs it now.

Dita Bhargava: 32:58

And like I said, I think we're moving in the right direction and it's working. The rates are coming down. It's working. Uh, we also need a lot more in mental health.

Angela Kennecke: 33:07

At an earlier age too. I mean, that's one thing that at Emily's Hope, and I know I've talked to you about this, our education curriculum, we're so committed to starting to work with kids in kindergarten, you know, just as soon as possible have age appropriate conversations, because. We know we're in a mental health crisis with young people, and then if people are turning to drugs to self medicate, solve their problems or whatever, escape, we know those drugs are deadly. And so we've got to get a handle.

Dita Bhargava: 33:36

Start early. Right, and build those resiliency skills. I've been talking about this with our legislators in Connecticut for years about so much has changed for our children. We don't live in the same world that you and I grew up in. No. Social MEET is sort of really amplifying that mental health. anxiety. You know, I know that social media is also helpful for a lot of children, you know, to connect, but it didn't come without thorns. And we haven't been educated as parents as to how to navigate this. And neither, quite frankly, have the teachers in the schools been educated on this. So the paradigm has shifted so much socially, but our educational system has largely stayed antiquated. And we need to update that. The system because that's where our children are spending eight hours a day is where they're being educated. So I've been advocating for a while to have instituted a social emotional learning program from K to 12 because there's a lot of evidence around these programs and how they equip students, not only for drugs and alcohol, but also violence and suicidal thoughts. So it's kind of like a given. We can't deny our children this opportunity. We have created this environment to society. Technology is advanced. It is our duty to make sure that we are equipping our children to be resilient in this new paradigm that we live in.

Angela Kennecke: 35:01

I agree with you 100%. And the other thing I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned you were on a CNN town hall. You mentioned you were down at the border. You're doing so much advocacy work on the national level. You also got to sit down and talk one on one with Kamala Harris as well.

Dita Bhargava: 35:15

Well, I have to say again, not to show any biases here, but I am a big fan and I really do think her background. She was a prosecutor. She prosecuted transnational criminals for drugs and for human trafficking for all of this. So when I heard her speak at the border, I was like, wow, this prosecutor woman is going to make our country safer. She is committed and she is going to do the things that she laid out, which were very impressive. And if you have a chance. Please go look at her border policies. But yes, I sat down with her in the West Wing offices last year Specifically because she was about to speak to attorneys general from across the country about the fentanyl scourge and the fentanyl epidemic and to collaborate with them to find solutions as to what we do law wise and what we do community wise to really stem this scourge of fentanyl. And before she did that, she invited me and two other parent advocates and we had a one on one. We talked about fentanyl, we talked about treatment centers and how you and I had just been talking about the lack of standard of care. This is something that she put forward actually in California as the attorney general. And we talked about so many aspects as we talked about, it's a multi pronged approach, and she listened to all of us as to what we were doing out there, what we needed help with, what laws we needed, what money we needed, what support we needed, what backing we needed from federal, we even talked a little bit about safe consumption sites, which she was very open to learning about, and she didn't disagree that that would be helpful to keep people alive and keep them safe. And it was really just a very touching conversation. I had met her before and, and when I saw her at the border, she thanked me for talking about fentanyl for years to her and making her aware of it. She is really a person who really owns what she hears about people and, and the lives that have been lost or their sufferings. And she wears it on her sleeve and she's out to sort of find the remedies. And work for the people. She calls herself Kamala Harris for the people. That's exactly, you know, what she is. And I trust that this is going to be a priority for her. We need this to be a priority.

Angela Kennecke: 37:31

Yeah, we need it to be a priority for anybody who's in power. And it's going to take all of us. I mean, leadership and everybody and even everybody in you and I and everybody coming together.

Dita Bhargava: 37:42

Well, Angela, I'm so grateful for you. And I'm so grateful for so many of us moms. It's mostly moms.

Angela Kennecke: 37:48

Who are, I always say, I talked to a few dads on the pod and I come across a few dads too. I don't know why it's mostly mothers, but I always liken it back. And people have heard me say this. They're probably sick of hearing me say this, but to the AIDS crisis, that it took a bunch of angry mothers, you know, making the quilts and going on Capitol Hill and doing all the things that we're kind of doing where we're not making quilts. Maybe we should start that, but all the things we're kind of doing, you and I. to try to save other people's kids, right? Because this is no longer about our children. We don't have our children. And I think you would agree with me, and every parent I've talked to has agreed with this, that I just don't want anyone else to feel that kind of pain that our families have experienced. And you talked about the ripple effects of one life. One life and, you know, the grandchildren will never have. What would those children have done? And the things that our own kids could have accomplished that we will never know. And I always talk about that. When I talk to groups about this crisis, I talk about the lost potential to the world, what we have lost, and we can't even wrap our heads around that. I

Dita Bhargava: 38:51

mean, can I go dark for one minute about sort of what is happening to our country? Life expectancy has dropped for several years in a row. We have an aging demographic and our younger are dying. We have rogue countries and, you know, Kamal Harris addressed this as part of our address in Arizona about just tougher stances against China, for instance, who is shipping, you know, the same thing happened to China 200 years ago in the opium war, right? Yes. And they haven't been shy at all. They've been very vocal about the fact that they have predictions as to when they will become the superpower. Well, ironically enough, I don't think it's coincidence that this drugs, this fentanyl, this poison. comes in through their company, you know, private companies, whatever, that they're don't have control over into our country and it's killing our young, you know, we have an aging demographic. So if we think about what this means for society, you're talking about grandchildren and everything else, this has huge ripple effects. They are really terrorists, you know, like this is terrorism in our country. you remember when, when anthrax was a scare?

Angela Kennecke: 40:01

Yes, because I've been in the news for like 35 years. I worked in the news. So, of course, I remember those anthrax scares and on Capitol Hill and

Dita Bhargava: 40:08

Right? Like, all of media was reporting this and it was in a few mailboxes and fentanyl coming in. Poison. Poison. Through, like, legal ports of entry. Poison coming in from China through Mexico and our society is disintegrating as we speak. Everybody in our country's hair should be on fire. We have to make this a priority. And I'm so glad you brought up the AIDS epidemic because I feel it's a very sort of similar. It's got a lot of remnants in terms of stigma and all of that. And in 1995, at the height of the AIDS crisis, I think it was like 46, 000 people had passed away. And the government started putting 30 billion dollars, because of grassroots and advocacy, because of moms. 30 billion dollars, and they have every year, I believe, since then.

Angela Kennecke: 40:55

And it's not a death sentence anymore. We've figured out how to help people survive, right?

Dita Bhargava: 41:00

We can do the same here because it's happened in other countries. If you look in Europe, it's happened. We can do the same. We just need that type of attention. I think it's moving in the right direction. The momentum I think is there. We just need to, to double down on those efforts.

Angela Kennecke: 41:15

Yeah. Well, thanks to advocates like you and thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. I really appreciate it. It's just been a pleasure to get to know you and to get to do this work alongside of you as well.

Dita Bhargava: 41:28

I appreciate everything you do, Angela, and I look forward to working with you. The fight's not

Angela Kennecke: 41:33

over. We're gonna, we're gonna cross paths again, so.

Dita Bhargava: 41:36

Yes, absolutely. 100%. All right, well, thanks for having me on your show, and let's stay in touch, and thank you for everything you're doing.

Angela Kennecke: 41:43

You're welcome. Thank you. And thank you for taking the time to learn about one of the most pressing crises facing our nation, the fentanyl epidemic. Please join us again next week as we explore a groundbreaking program that helps babies born with opioid independence along with their parents.

Jazmin Pedroza: 42:08

They made me feel like a person again. They made me feel like I'm a human again. Like just because I used, you know, it happens, you know, but I They didn't judge me, you know, they didn't judge, they've seen past, like, they've seen Jasmine, they've seen Jasmine in recovery, they've seen Jasmine trying to get help.

Tara Sundem: 42:29

This is how I want you to treat my daughter. I want you to, like, hug her and embrace her and tell her, number one, congratulations. Congratulations, everyone that's pregnant, first thing you hear is congratulations, I'm so excited for you. My families never

Angela Kennecke: 42:47

get told congratulations. That's next week on Grieving Out Loud. Thanks again. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Kacey Wundenberg King and Kaylee Fitz.