Presidential hopeful Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) got personal during a Friday interview on her plan to combat America’s addiction crisis, revealing that she was inspired by her father’s own experience.
Appearing on “CBS This Morning,” the candidate described her father as “a newspaperman and a columnist and a mountaineer” who “climbed to the highest mountains but then sunk to the lowest valleys because of his problems with alcoholism.”
It wasn’t until Jim Klobuchar ran into potential trouble with the law that he began seeking help, his daughter said.
“He had three DWIs, and what I saw was, on the third one, that made him go to treatment,” the senator recalled. “That was it; because he was facing jail time, and when he went to treatment, in his words, he was pursued by grace.”
On Friday, Klobuchar released her $100 billion plan for addressing addiction and mental health in a Medium post featuring an old black and white photo of her and her dad, pointing out that “everyone knows someone who struggles.”
Klobuchar’s initiative would focus on prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery, including increasing space in facilities for mental health and substance abuse. It would also involve expanding health care and investing in research.
To finance her plan, Klobuchar is proposing a two-cent per milligram fee on opioids, which would be aimed at drug importers or manufacturers.
Other Democratic candidates have made similar proposals, including former Rep. John Delaney (Md.), who unveiled his mental health action plan on Wednesday, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), who introduced the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency Act last year with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to combat opioid addiction.
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