Congressman Paul Tonko represents New York’s 20th Congressional District, including the communities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs and Amsterdam. He represents all of Albany and Schenectady Counties and parts of Montgomery, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties.
He is serving his seventh term, after first being sworn into Congress in 2009.
Paul serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the oldest standing committee in the House, created in December of 1795. He is the first Upstate New York Democratic member to serve on the committee since Leo O'Brien, who resigned the post in October 1966. He was elected by his peers in the 116th Congress to chair the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. He was also selected to continue his service on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, as well as on the Natural Resources Committee.
In 2018, our nation lost more than 68,500 family, friends and neighbors to the devastating disease of addiction, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While that year marked the first drop in overdose deaths in the U.S. in almost 30 years, we are still facing a crisis that continues to overwhelm our communities. In fact, Americans are dying from this illness at a faster rate than they did at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that sparked a national movement to address it. This tremendous loss of life is so staggering that overdose deaths contributed to the overall reduction of Americans life expectancy.
Despite the horror and scope of this epidemic, just 1 in 5 individuals suffering with Substance Use Disorder is receiving the treatment they need.
We have to demand better. This disease of despair deserves a response rooted in hope.
We must broaden our focus from arrests and incarceration alone to include pillars of prevention, treatment and recovery. And we must transform the way we think and talk about this issue, applying science and practical solutions we know can work to intervene for individuals who find themselves on a path to addiction and those already in crisis, and to support these individuals and their families in finding a path of prevention or recovery.