Tram T. Nguyen serves as the State Representative for the 18th Essex District. which includes parts of Andover, Boxford, North Andover, and Tewksbury. A first generation Vietnamese-American, Tram was five when her family came to the U.S. as political refugees, escaping the communist regime of Vietnam. Her family settled in the Merrimack Valley, where Tram excelled in school and became the first person in her family to graduate from college at Tufts University, and she went on to graduate from Northeastern University School of Law.
Opioid addiction is a public health crisis. We should not simply brush it aside with arrests and incarceration. Instead, my efforts would focus on prevention and treatment. I support programs that educate youth about addiction and identify and support students at risk, as well as ones that educate doctors about safer prescription management. We can also save more lives by increasing the availability of the overdose reversal agent Naloxone (Narcan) to first responders and caregivers and supporting long-term treatments, including housing for recovering addicts and treatment beds for those suffering from addiction. Prevention and long-term treatment are how we rescue our community from this deadly affliction.