2024 Interim Joint Committee on Health Services - Rep. Ryan Dotson

thank you madam chair and uh just wanted to just say judge Mullins I appreciate your report today to this committee and the fact that you've been a district judge sitting on the front lines I see the compassion in your eyes and hear it in your voice when you speak about these cases and it's very powerful and I thank you for that and very proud of the fact that ky's number one in something and uh you know it's very rare so we need to celebrate those victories and very thankful for that for the recovery ecosystem that we have in place and the network that's been developed here Kentucky um but this committee deals with re Rehabilitation the medical aspect of recovery and really trying to help the family unit to get back together but something that is a driving thought for me on this committee today listening to this listening to the prior testimony is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and you being a district judge seeing these cases what can we do as a general assembly to cut the legs off of our dope dealers and Kentucky what would you cuz I think if we can we can go after some of these people who are predators and that are hurting our communities from a Judicial perspective I'd like to hear what you would like to have to say on the judicial side of things I think in my opinion to effectively combat or fight the problem you have to do it on a two-pronged approach number one has to be the law enforcement the seizures the doing your best to prevent the the drugs from coming in and then number two I guess we might could look at that on the supply side we have to fight it and then we also have to fight the demand side just as you said I think the prevention programs to our youth are key MH um and then also some people are proponents of a thought of the best prevention is Early Intervention when someone develops a problem we have to eliminate the stigma to get them into treatment because we all know the earlier we can catch this problem and I would assume it would be the same as a lot of chronic diseases let's say as diabetes as an example the sooner we can catch this problem and get these people into treatment the easier it is for us and then you know in looking at all this you have the human components and that's what I've showed you today but really there's such a physical component a financial component of how it makes so much more sense rather than have someone incarcerated in our County jails which is a burden on our County base of $30 $31 a day or in our state prison system or our kids being put in foster care at the tune of $250 million a year if we can get these people rehabilitated get their lives back get them contributing as taxpayers again then to me it's a win-win but yes I agree wholeheartedly with what you said pre prevention is absolutely the first step is you know it's obviously if they never have the problem it's you don't have to worry about it I hope that answers what you you were asking sir real quickly I just want to just say thank you again for your work and I appreciate that that's something we need to consider maybe going into the 2025 session but uh you know I I had a cousin that uh OD through a fanol overdose and to me I I see that uh anyone that that deals in that and someone passes away is guilty of murder in my opinion you know so I'm just trying to look at things from a different lens and just try to see what we can do to prevent all this from happening thank you thank you sir