All Episodes
Previous Next
July 8, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
41:10
A Bi-Partisian look at Mental Health
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey everybody, I don't know about you, but as you've watched out over the world, the war in Russia and Ukraine is not just isolated to Eastern Europe, it's spread all over the world and you can see it in market instabilities, you can see it here.
People who do not think that that war is affecting you, all you gotta do is look at gas prices, you look at your food prices, you see the global change that has happened.
But you know something that's also affected investments as well, and I've said all along, Legacy Precious Metals is your navigator.
They're the ones that see you through to get to the next level.
The good news about this is, even with market volatility, market instability, you've got options.
And gold prices are rising as investors turn to gold, and gold presents a hedge against this inflation and that protects you against the weakening dollar, which we are seeing.
Legacy Precious Metals is the only company I trust to deal with gold and silver and the other precious metals.
You need this investment.
You need this as part of your portfolio to keep you buffered from what we're seeing in the world.
War and volatility in the market.
This is where you need to be.
Call Legacy Precious Metals today.
Be proactive about this.
Get on board with it.
Call them at 866-528-1903, 866-528-1903.
Or you can download their free investors guide at LegacyPMInvestments.com. LegacyPMInvestments.com, your navigator in a volatile world of investments.
You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, it's Doug Collins.
Welcome back to the Doug Collins Podcast.
Glad to have you with us.
Got a special treat today.
We got a guest that we sort of met when we were put on opposite ends and that was on a show with Harris Faulkner over on Fox and David Carlucci is with me today.
He's a former state senator from New York, Democratic Party state senator.
There's a lot probably in life that we disagree on.
But there's some things that we actually did agree upon.
And one of the things I enjoyed about being opposite David on the Fox hit is we may have disagreed on direction of country and other things.
But when I started looking into it, I started seeing his argument.
And I come to find out that there's several things that he has done that I have also worked on, that we've worked on in the past that I wanted to bring to light to show that We may have our differences, and we may be Republicans and Democrats and have differences of opinion on policy, but there's a lot of things that the country is desperately needing for us to get right.
One of those areas that we've talked about a lot here on the podcast, we've talked about a lot on my radio show and others, is this fact of criminal justice reform.
And also, it's sort of what I'll say in many ways is tag-along twin, and that being mental health.
Mental health and criminal justice is almost interchangeable when it comes to it.
As many of you know, I worked with Hakeem Jeffries, Hakeem Jeffries and Congress.
We did the First Step Act together.
We also did many other bills together, but it was very much of a focus on what we did.
So, David, I welcome you to the Doug Collins Podcast.
We're glad to have you here.
Looking forward to having this discussion because I think it's an important one right now.
But before we get started, I do want to give you just an opportunity to tell people about what your political experience was and how you've gotten to where you're at now.
Well, Doug, thanks so much for having me.
It's a pleasure to be on with you and be able to talk about this very important topic.
Yeah, I served in the New York State Senate for 10 years, and during that entire time, I was co-chair of the Addiction Task Force.
And that changed over the years.
We had Republicans in power.
We had Democrats in power in the State Senate.
And throughout that time, I maintained my role as co-chair.
And what I really came to find out was that in the United States, unfortunately, we treat addiction as a criminal element instead of a disease.
And that's the root of the problem.
I also chaired the Mental Health Committee, and it gave me this real sense of obligation to work on issues to end the stigma attached to addiction and mental illness and make sure that we're really treating it as a disease.
But unfortunately, I find that even in New York, you know, a more progressive state, and I've been traveling to other states as well, because now that I'm out of the Senate, I'm working on advocacy on these issues.
And I find that that stigma, it exists everywhere.
It exists in the local jurisdictions.
It exists at the highest levels of political power.
And it's unfortunate because many times I think people don't know that they even have the stigma.
And that's something that needs to be changed.
And we have a long way to go.
But I compliment you on the work you've done with the First Step Act.
I saw your recent editorial that you wrote about that act and about pushing the Equal Act.
And I think it's so important.
And this shouldn't be a partisan issue.
And I don't think it is.
But it's one that we have to maintain and hope that it becomes less and less partisan and one that people really treat it for what it is.
David, I can't agree with you more on that.
I mean, because one of the things that we deal with on this issue is how do you find solutions in what should be partisan, not partisan?
And I think a lot of times it comes down to what you were sort of talking about there of this stigma.
I'll use an example.
My daughter is 30 years old.
She has spina bifida.
She was born without feeling below her belly button.
So she can't walk.
She has no feeling.
But she's active, 30-year-old.
She treats her daddy and gives me a hard time.
She goes to work every day, three days a week at the hospital.
But what is interesting is I can still see to this day We go somewhere, there'll be people who look at her, and she understands this, and she'll look at her, and they have sympathy.
It's like they see her in a wheelchair, they have sympathy.
And I've used this example, and I've spoken all over the country about this, especially when we talk about mental health.
I said, we've got to come to the point to where Not that you would have sympathy for my daughter who's in a wheelchair, or if I came in and I had my arm in a sling, and you'd say, oh, Doug, what happened to your arm?
And have that sympathy.
But if I stood before you and said, folks, I'm having a hard morning.
Something in my mind is not right this morning.
I said, we've got to have the same sympathy because what actually happens then is instead of moving forward many times, people move backwards.
They take a step back because we're sort of scared of it.
And that's the stigma from where I see it.
Are you seeing sort of that same issue that we don't know how to deal with it?
People are sympathetic to an extent, but they're scared of it a little bit.
Yeah, we still don't know how to talk about it.
We still don't know how to act.
I'm 41 years old.
I consider myself still a young person.
It's debatable.
Wait till you get to 55, David.
Wait till you get to 55, then it's all downhill.
And I bring that up because I'm sure you can imagine, I can imagine when I was in high school, when I was in grade school, went to public school my entire time.
There wasn't much of an emphasis on this.
We learn how to read, how to write, science, all that great stuff, but we learn a little bit about our brain, about our own mind, about our emotional intelligence.
And it's one of the things I think is the most important.
We have this supercomputer in our head, this brain, that we barely know how to use.
And the scientists that know the most about our brain tell us that we still know very little.
We probably know more about the galaxy than we do about our own human brain.
So I think that's very exciting.
I think that we have so much potential.
And I think we've come leaps and bounds in just a generation In understanding the importance of mental health, the importance of having a well-balanced healthcare system where we treat mental illness and physical illness in the same way, in meaning that they're equally important.
So, I think, yeah, I see that and I see that we have a long way to go.
The stigma is at root of the problem.
You know, one of the things I was very excited about, I know when you were in Congress, you worked on the...
Now I'm forgetting the number, but on the suicide hotline, we're at 988, right?
And that was something where we know that, hey, you know, just like you're having a crisis for a physical crisis, you call 911, right?
We want to have a memorable number to fight the stigma, but also to get people help they need if they're suffering from addiction or other type of crisis, that they can make that call immediately.
And that's something that I'd worked on in New York to say, look, we could just flip the switch.
Let's get it running right away.
But now soon we'll have 988 running around the country and people will be able to make that call if they are in crisis.
And that does a few things.
I think it gets access to people that need specialized help, but also helps to cure that stigma that exists.
As people talk about it more, as it becomes more relatable, more common, this will be an important tool.
I think you're right in that.
And let's break this down a little bit further.
One of the issues as we talk about mental health, we talk about addiction, one of the things I want to be very careful of, and I think you would as well, is they...
One, there are two distinct issues.
There's elements of both.
There's plenty of people who are addicted who have no mental health issues.
They got addicted, they're on drugs.
But then you have also that element of those who have mental health conditions among a wide variety of different things, but either fall into addiction or other things because of that as we go forward.
One of the things, though, that I said, David, I think you can appreciate this, even from a conservative perspective, I tell audiences all the time, I say, look, When it comes to these issues, whether you like it or not, you're going to pay one way or the other.
You're either going to pay to help treat mental health conditions, or you're going to pay for it in your jails and your other way.
I said, either way, you're going to pay for it.
I said, so let's get this out of the way front.
What's the best way to do that?
I'm just curious, and you've done this as well, I'm sure.
I've seen this in not only the state of Georgia, but all over the countries I've traveled.
Local sheriff's offices, which control your jails, your county jails and everything.
I've had upwards, I know in some of my counties, 45 to 50% of the inmate population in your local jail have two commonalities.
Number one, either a mental health condition, diagnosed or undiagnosed, or an addiction issue.
Are you seeing that?
Was you seeing that in New York as well?
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
One of the things I worked on You know, I represented Sing Sing Prison, and it's notorious.
Yeah, and it's right in my district.
And, you know, I worked with the corrections officers, and they've got a real issue because we give them certain tools, right, to do their job.
But one of the tools that they desperately need in this day and age is mental health training.
To be able to react in a way that's appropriate when someone is having an episode or they are just struggling with mental health issues on a daily basis.
It's something that I'm sure you know.
You've been in the prisons.
It's not a pleasant place to be.
Whether you're an inmate or a corrections officer, you need support and you need help.
One of the things I worked on in New York was to mandate I think it's a step in the right direction to give that basic amount of mental health training to protect our corrections officers and to protect our inmates.
But you're absolutely right that you find a direct correlation to mental illness, to addiction with incarceration.
So that's why I think one of the first steps that we can do, it doesn't impact everybody, but we have to get it right on drug policy.
And that's why the First Step Act, the Equal Act, are just so important in this day and age.
But again, you know, the First Step Act is called that for a reason.
I think it's the first step.
We have a long history of drug policy that's just wrong.
Now we know that.
Ten years in the Senate and the Mental Health Committee, I've read the reports, I've seen the studies.
Time and time again, we have it backwards.
We lock people up for really a mental health issue or an addiction issue.
When they really need help, they don't need incarceration.
And it just exacerbates the issue.
You know, I see this now in many states that are talking about whether it's the legalization of marijuana or the criminalization of different cannabinoids that are now becoming popular because of the 2018 Farm Bill.
And what I say is that these products are not necessarily harmful.
Of course, it can deteriorate your quality of life.
But the biggest problem with these substances is the adulterated substances.
And that's why we've seen over 100,000 people last year pass away of a drug overdose.
This is because it's often spiked with fentanyl or another type of opioid and it's just so deadly.
It shuts down the breathing in your body and you die.
But a lot of the people you look at, it's a polydrug scenario when you look at the toxicology reports.
And so I'm a big advocate and I know we have this policy in America of just say no.
Well, I think just say no is the laziest form of policy.
I'm guilty of it as a politician myself.
There's times when I said, well, let's just ban it.
The reality is I see it firsthand in New York.
We can say we ban it, but it's accessible.
These products are accessible.
The more we can do to regulate it and make sure that people that are consuming these products know what they're consuming, we will be better off.
I think we try to Answer it as a moral issue instead of a healthcare issue or a consumer protection issue.
And that's really unfortunate.
But I know, you know, I know I'm talking to someone that has done a lot of research on this and can sympathize with my argument.
But many times if I bring up an argument about trying to regulate substances, you know, people just go bonkers and I fall on deaf ears.
But I just say, look, the alarm bells should be ringing.
The sirens should be going off.
I mean, we have an epidemic in this country, and I'm not talking about COVID. I'm talking about drug overdoses.
In this day and age, right, where we've been at this for a long time, and the numbers just keep rising and keep rising, you've got to say, look, we've got to do something different.
And unfortunately, I think it falls on deaf ears.
When you talk to people, this is not a priority in state houses, in Congress.
There's so many other issues going on.
Lawmakers are drinking from a fire hose.
And it almost seems like the public has become numb to this overdose epidemic that we're facing.
They have.
And Dave, one of the things, and let's take that out a step further, because fentanyl, when you look at the fentanyl issue, which is becoming more and more just epidemic, I mean, there's just been reports just this last week of this young man who had, from every indication I had, had never been a drug user, used once fentanyl and overdosed on it.
And because of the amounts you're seeing, and this is the scary part.
Me a little bit more than you, but even age-wise, I mean, we remember coming up through a time in which the, what most everybody will take off the chart, you know, heroin, cocaine, all these, it should not be in, you know, regular, where the usage were there,
you saw overdoses happen, you did have it, but now with the spiking of these drugs, with the, you know, the cutting of them, with the stuff, I really want to point out on this podcast, if somebody's opening up this podcast and they're listening to me and David talk about this, let me just say this real quickly.
These drugs that you're getting that relate heroin and others that are being laced, it could be your one time.
You're not going to be six years strung out and then all of a sudden hit one.
You could do this the first time, and I think this is the important part.
You know, we can have differences on how we actually, with marijuana or cannabinoids, those kind of things.
But one of the things that we struggle with in Congress, David, and I know it came back to a state level, was the access to opioids that came out of basically legal prescriptions.
And that sort of triggered off this sort of latest round about 10 to 12 years ago when, you know, whether it be, you know, more health insurance plans, whatever, the doctors were prescribing them as if, frankly, they had no...
I think we're getting a handle on that, but we're still feeling the after effects from what I've seen.
I don't know how that was in New York, but I did in Georgia and other places.
No, absolutely.
I think the access to opioids like OxyContin, you know, have just really exacerbated the situation.
And we look at, you know, former marketing materials that made opioids seem like they were non-addictive.
The total opposite, right?
It's one of the most addictive substances on Earth.
You're absolutely right.
This is not a recreational drug.
This isn't like someone smoking a joint and hanging out.
Opioids are a serious, serious addiction.
I remember the fight to get Naloxone or Narcan, the brand name, accessible.
And this was a battle I had with the commissioner of the health department of New York State that I was in a back and forth because at that time you needed a prescription to carry naloxone, which is the opioid antidote.
And if we get it in someone's system as having an overdose, it revives them.
So we actually had to pass legislation in New York and we were The first state to do this to say that naloxone would be accessible over-the-counter doing that through state legislation.
It didn't need to be legislated, but it wasn't being done through the health department.
The health department could have issued a standing order just like they do to issue vaccines for the flu or other issues like COVID, what we've seen with vaccines.
But that's where it gets back to the stigma.
When I was debating naloxone, I had to do naloxone trainings in my community and throughout New York State just to issue the prescription so people could carry naloxone.
When I would talk about this with senators, they would give me pushback and say, well, if you allow naloxone to be more accessible, you're just encouraging more drug use.
There you go.
And I'd say, wow, you know, unfortunately, you just don't understand what type of drug this is.
People are not saying, oh, there's naloxone, let me go use heroin or other types of opioids.
That just doesn't happen.
Are there cases where people are bringing naloxone because they know they're going to use or someone else is going to use?
Yes.
That's going to happen with or without naloxone, but these are the types of small little debates we're having that show, oh wow, we're still miles away.
Same with all the MAT, any medical-assisted treatment.
The fact that doctors, any doctor, can prescribe opioids, but only a small percentage can prescribe MAT is just astonishing.
It's amazing.
Now, that's starting to be lifted, some of the restrictions.
But you still have an overwhelming minority of physicians in this country that can prescribe medical-assisted treatment, things like Suboxone and Buprenorphine, things that we know can save lives but are just not readily available or accessible yet.
Yeah, is it a mixed bag?
It's not just medication.
It's also treatment.
The doctors need to know, are there opioids in this person's system?
If there are or if they're not, it depends on the type of MAT that they can have.
But these are things that, boy, we should have blown past by now.
These are simple things that should have been done, but yet it's not grabbing the attention of lawmakers And oftentimes, it's just, yeah, we should do something.
The same with mental health.
It's, yes, we should do something, but nothing is done.
It's just talk.
Mental health is a buzzword, and then we move on.
And there's not this real emphasis.
It is.
It's like the fire department.
You know, you go to every city or county and they say, oh golly, we've got the fire department, they're wanting a new fire truck, they're wanting new people.
Well, you know, nobody wants the fire department to be funded until their house is on fire.
And that's sort of the issue you have here.
One quick thing on what you were just saying, then I want to jump to something here.
You know, the issue we had just recently, a doctor here that I know of in Georgia, who had to deal with a reprimand, a loss of sort of suspension necessarily on his license because of prescribing something like a loss of sort of suspension necessarily on his license because of prescribing something like we just talked about that, I mean, this is a doctor, you know, they can do this stuff.
But again, that's the waste of time going through the medical boards.
There's a whole different issue.
The boards and certification process we have in this country.
But let's move back to mental health and the criminal justice aspect of this a little bit.
In Georgia, Georgia, and we're not unique.
It had gotten bad in Georgia about 15 years ago, or a little more.
Of course, we were using the model that a lot of states, some probably still use, is the institutionalization model.
If you're mental health, we just put you in an institution.
We just sort of forget about you.
Then you start having a lot of the court cases, no, we need to reintroduce mental health issues into the community, socialize that.
And keep them away from just being institutionalized.
So there was a big lawsuit entered into him, a big decision that came down that the governor at the time signed into law.
At the time, it was to remove and to decentralize mental health.
Put it back into communities, and Georgia has 159 counties.
Only Texas has more counties than we do, for some unknown reason.
But there was this idea that we were going to have, in all 159 counties, you were going to have sort of standalone, mental health accessible clinics.
That was sort of the process.
I can tell you now, 15 years, 16, 17 years in the future, that never happened.
The institutionalization, they started shutting down institutions.
They started putting people back into the communities with no help, no places to go.
And then it turned into the criminal justice side of this.
Now, my sheriffs will tell me that if they get a call for somebody who they know is a mental health issue, it's not a criminal issue, they're acting strangely behavior-wise, there's other things going on, that some of them have to drive two and a half hours To get someone to have a facility that would even take them for the night.
This is the problem we're dealing with.
I mean, because they just get to the point where it's just not, it's easier just to put them in a holding cell and hope for the best because it's just not there.
Is that something, I mean, I've seen it in other states.
What about New York?
How does New York handle that?
Yeah, in a similar way.
In New York, we had the most amount of psychiatric centers in the country at one time, with 24. Right where I represent is the Rockland Psychiatric Center, which is now one of the largest in the state and in the country.
Because there was an effort to close down many of these psychiatric institutions and to, like you said, have the least restrictive environment, least restrictive setting for people that are suffering with mental illness.
And so, yes, the idea is to move it more towards outpatient treatment to allow people to live in that least restrictive setting.
So a big push is supportive housing.
And the goal was to build all of these supportive housing units.
So that's where someone lives on their own, but they have someone watching them, helping them with daily life activities, wraparound service, if you will.
But those units were desperately behind.
And there are things called adult homes.
We call them that in New York.
And that's kind of frowned upon.
And everybody agrees, hey, there should be a better way.
But the problem is, many people, this is where they live.
And people are helped with medications to take them.
Many times you go to an adult home, it's not a place that looks inviting or someplace that you would want to promote.
But the problem is that there's not an alternative.
And until these supportive housing units are actually built and are accessible to people that need them, you're going to have to have things like adult homes and places for people to stay.
But to your point, back to the MAT, something as simple as methadone.
Methadone's been around for half a century, but the problem with methadone is that it's not in my backyard.
Nobody wants these methadone clinics in their backyard, unfortunately.
So even in New York, I'm only 20 miles from Manhattan, and I've got people that have to drive literally two hours away.
Each way to get methadone to live a balanced, productive life.
But this is happening all over the country.
If it's happening in New York, I mean, I can't imagine what's happening in rural parts of this country where people need methadone, it's helped them, but access to it is so difficult.
And it's these bureaucratic, you know, it's a bureaucratic red tape That was set up many years ago, and there has been tiny reforms very recently, but still not enough done on something that we know can help people, but yet they have to alter their lives and go way out of their way just to get this treatment that will help them live a productive life.
So it's a real problem.
One of the things that I work on now, I work with the American Kratom Association.
And I don't know if you're familiar with Kratom, but actually in Georgia, yeah, we've passed the Kratom Consumer Protection Act.
And it's an interesting thing because I see Kratom as a form of harm reduction.
It's something that's not, you know, that commonly known about.
We believe about 15 million Americans consume Kratom.
It's not a respiratory depressant, but it's a plant that comes from Southeast Asia and has helped many people that are suffering with withdrawal symptoms.
What happens is someone's consuming Kratom because they are suffering from addiction to opioids many times.
They're taking Kratom.
They're buying it in the store.
It's a visible thing.
That person might have an overdose, but it's due to a poly drug scenario where then they're using opioids again.
What's happened many times is a sheriff or someone on the scene says, oh, wow, you know, this person died of a Kratom overdose.
The reality is it's not a Kratom overdose, it's the other opioids in their system.
And so I've worked on this policy where we're trying to make sure that Kratom is regulated.
Because right now it's not regulated in the United States.
We have eight states like Georgia that have passed the Kratom Consumer Protection Act.
But I bring this up because it's one of those things where I talk to state lawmakers and I'm just shocked about the amount of stigma attached to addiction.
And the unwillingness to really hear the facts about what this substance is and isn't.
And the real problem with kratom is adulterated kratom.
Because like we talked about, if it's spiked with fentanyl, you know, this could be a one-time thing.
You can have an overdose and die.
Two things as simple and benign as Simonilla or E. coli.
But because it's not regulated, you have unscrupulous actors out there that are trying to sell something, claiming it's pure, but it's not.
And that's where people get into trouble.
So it's back to that issue of, you know, just say no, because we have to fight back these bills that come up where lawmakers say, well, let's just ban it.
And we know that that is just not the way to go because then people are not getting, they're still going to be trying to consume this product, but they're going to get it in an unsafe way.
So a lot of the work that I'm doing is towards how do we regulate these substances that people are consuming?
We know they're consuming.
States try to ban them.
People are still consuming them.
That's where a lot of the trouble comes in.
So it's being honest with ourselves, being honest with what the science really says, trying to move away from the stigma, and getting people access to the substances that they're using, they're consuming, and making sure that they're getting what they think they're getting.
One of the reasons I wanted to do this podcast with you, in addition to being on the same show with you that day, was we have a mutual friend who did not have any idea of this at all out of Kentucky, someone who works in a substance abuse faith-based clinic out there.
Who I've had to deal with, with clients of mine.
And after he saw you and I on TV together, he texted me about it.
And it sort of piqued my interest in this further.
One of the things that, Bill, that I had worked on, and I think it goes back to what you said, is recognizing mental health.
The sad part about this is, and getting back to the mental health side of it for a minute, Mental health has not only been stigmatized, but it's also been mimicked or mocked in a lot of ways.
There's this overblown perception that people fake mental illness to get out of crimes or to get out of other things.
Does that happen occasionally?
Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to say it doesn't, but the idea that you have people going around and committing crimes and saying, oh, I'm going to just plead insanity, that's just not...
We're talking about true mental health issues, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar, these are real issues that can be helped with proper treatment.
But telling the difference is hard.
One of the bills that I passed early on in my congressional career was a bill called the Criminal Justice and Mental Health Act.
And what it did was provide funding for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and others To train federal law enforcement officers to be able to identify a subject that may be having a mental health episode as opposed to a criminal episode, as opposed to an anger or, frankly, an addiction or an episode with drugs or alcohol.
I was amazed at hearing back from officers how little training, you mentioned this earlier in the podcast, how little training they actually get.
My dad was a state trooper, and I talked to him about this one time, and he said, yeah, it's difficult.
He said, you don't know if they're, and his word, crazy, you don't know if they're mental health, if they're out there, or they're drunk, or they're high.
And I think this is important because it also cuts down on the rancor that comes up between police officers and what they see on the streets every day.
That's right.
Yeah.
No, you're exactly right.
You know, one of the things that I've worked on is in New York, we call them crisis intervention teams.
And the idea is to get funding to train officers, a select group of officers in each police department that can respond to these calls.
And you're absolutely right, because we're not just talking about protecting regular citizens, we're talking about protecting police officers.
And not with weapons, but with the training to be able to disarm, and not physically disarm, but really disarm And make sure that someone is in the right place.
Some of the statistics, you know, I don't have them in front of me, but they're really alarming in terms of the danger that our police officers are in when they're responding to some of these cases.
Something as simple and as common, unfortunately, as a domestic violence dispute, a very common case, one of the most deadly calls for a police officer to respond to.
And it's because of the mental health component here.
If an officer is well-trained and understands the ins and outs, first, of domestic violence, which is a horrible, horrible thing, and one that has many intricate levels, and then the mental health component to that, to be able to de-escalate the situation protects the police officers going to see, protects the police officer, and can possibly divert someone from the criminal justice system to get them the treatment that they need.
We call it CIT in New York.
We started with some funding to get a few police departments up and running with crisis intervention training.
Or crisis intervention teams.
But unfortunately, this is a small, small percentage of our police departments have anybody that's trained in this, let alone a whole team, to be able to respond to these crises.
Thankfully, for the work that you've done in Congress, there is some funding available.
But what you notice about the funding, and even in New York, the funding that I worked on, it's a competitive grant process.
So it's not one where it's going to every police department.
It's going to a few select police departments that say, hey, I'm ready.
We can do it.
And you're going to find not too many police departments are up to the challenge because they've got so many issues that they're dealing with.
You know, this is one of the things we have to make commonplace.
This should be, you know, just standard training for our police officers that are, you know, I know in New York where I live, we have some of the best trained police officers, I believe, in the country.
You know, extremely professional, you know, dedicated individuals.
But still, you know, to this day, they're lacking that type of training.
It's difficult.
It's complex.
But it's so important to protect the safety of our officers and the safety of our community.
Well, I think this has been very important in the way we discuss this.
And one of the things that when Hakeem and I were working together on a lot of different issues, not just criminal justice, we did music, we did a lot of things together.
But especially criminal justice, he and I would go into different groups.
He would come with me with conservative organizations I was handling a lot where there was some resistance.
Are we being soft on crime?
Not.
And they were scared.
You know, they were hesitant to talk to Hakeem.
I'd go to very liberal organizations and they would look at Hakeem and say, what is he doing here?
You know, kind of thing.
But it's this kind of conversation that actually helps us.
And it was really how we discussed it.
For me, as a conservative person of faith, I described it for our members.
I said, look, these issues that we're talking about from criminal justice reform, mental health, even bringing in, I described them as M&Ms, monies and morals.
I said, if I... I can't get you on the moral aspect that we need to help people.
Then let me get you on the money aspect of this.
I said we can save money, reduce our prison population, and put people productively into the society if we work on it.
And from the moral perspective, frankly, everyone we see, I believe, is a child of God, that is a creation of God that deserves respect.
And I think that's one of the areas that we're going on.
I appreciate this conversation.
As we go further, I may get you back on and we'll talk about some issues we disagree on.
And that'll be fun too for our listeners.
Because I do believe civil discourse is what we need in this country.
We're not going to agree on everything.
And I mean, you and I can make a laundry list of things we don't agree on.
That's right.
But it's the things we do agree upon that we've got to work on because there are people literally dying right now.
And frankly, public safety.
And it's the question, it's like, how do we incentivize politicians to work to find that common ground?
Because I know, look, there's plenty of things we disagree with.
We know that.
And it's going to be a little harder to find those things we can agree with.
But right now, there's really no incentive for politicians to come to the table to find that common ground.
Compromise is a dirty word.
I know I've been through a Democratic primary for Congress, and I was accused of working with Republicans too much.
And to Republicans, it'd be like, what?
This guy?
And I know it's the same on the right.
But that's the problem, right?
And I'm hopeful that the electorate will recognize and say, look, I'm not just going to go to my corner.
I'm going to reward the politician for reaching across the aisle and trying to get something done.
You know, it's a really interesting phenomena, but one I hope will improve as the years go on.
It is, and as you ran for Congress and found that out, at least you didn't have them take a picture of me and you and use that, which they might in a run if you ever run again.
I had a picture of me and Stacey Abrams, who I served together in the Georgia legislature.
They used that as, oh, Doug's this, you know, like, oh, give me a break.
David, it's been great to have you with us.
Folks, if you listen to Doug Collins' podcast, this is a real issue.
Democrats, Republicans can agree that we need to find mental health resources.
We need to remove the stigma of mental health.
We need to address drug addiction.
We need to address the causes.
Just say no is a part of the plan, but it's not going to be the whole plan.
Because it's out there, it's happening, and we need to put the resources in our communities.
Because right now, bottom line, for your family, for your family's sake, it is those police officers, those first responders, who are having to deal with this on a daily basis.
And we've got to put things in place to actually make it work.
So, David, thank you for being a part of the Doug Collins Podcast.
I'll definitely look to have you back on, because I think we could have some fun with this in times ahead.
Look forward to it.
Thank you.
Alright, thanks.
Folks, everybody, this is the Doug Collins Podcast.
We've got a lot more ready for you.
You can just download, subscribe, make sure you like it, share it with your friends.
And maybe for some of you, if you've never seen a Democrat and a Republican talking together, maybe this is the episode you share with your friends and say, hey, it can get done.
But we're glad to have you a part of the Doug Collins Podcast.
Thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.
Hey everybody, I just want to talk about sleep.
You know why I want to talk about sleep?
It's because I just got out from underneath my MyPillow bed sheets and MyPillow that I keep under my head every night because I like to sleep on my side, I like to sleep on my back, I like to sleep, you know, I move at night and MyPillow is just the best thing that goes under my head.
It keeps me getting restful sleep.
The sheets are amazing.
It's just what you need.
Everybody understands you need seven hours of sleep.
Why not sleep in some of the best products out there?
And Mike and the folks at MyPillar are great folks to do this with and you can go to MyPillar.com or you can call them at 800-564-8475.
You'd code word Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S. You won't want to miss this.
If you have not got these Giza Bed sheets.
You need them.
They're amazing.
They're soft.
They don't wear out.
You need those to get that sleep against your body at night and provide that cooling, just soothing nature that lets you get the most sleep.
But you know, they're not just about bed sheets and pillows.
They also have the MySlippers.
Amazing.
I've talked to you about it before.
I don't wear slippers, but I do wear my slippers.
They're amazingly comfortable.
You can wear them outside.
You can wear them inside.
Great products.
You've got towels.
You've got all kinds of stuff.
Go to MyPillow.com.
It's spring cleaning time.
It's spring time to get out there and try and buy new things.
Replace some of your old stuff.
You'll want to replace your towels.
Get some other products for your bedroom.
▲
Export Selection