Hello, all.

My name is Kerry Anne Garnick. I am a New Hampshire native and a recovering drug addict. In March of 2016, I was on death's door. I couldn't stop getting high despite overdoses, brushes with the law, and multiple attempts to stop using. On March 28, I finally decided that I needed to go to treatment. I told my parents and we started calling different treatment centers all around New England.

My first day clean was extremely rough. I was vomiting all day and could not hold down solid food. This was made worse by the fact that I knew that my misery could be temporarily staved off by just getting high "one more time". Because of intense parental supervision, however, I managed to stay clean until I found a treatment center in New Hampshire that had a bed for me. As I was leaving my house, they called me and told me that even with my mother's federal employee insurance, my insurance would not cover the cost. At this point, I was ready to give up. Had it not been for my crying mother, I would probably have left my house that day and gotten high.

Eventually, after days of calling and staying on long wait lists, I finally found a treatment center in Pennsylvania that would take me immediately and be covered by my insurance, but the fact that I had to go to Pennsylvania in the first place is extraordinarily dangerous. I think back and see how lucky I am. Had my parents not been able to afford to take time off from work to take me to Pennsylvania, or if they had not been available to supervise me 24 hours a day while I was waiting for a bed, I would have probably died from an overdose.

Many of my friends, however, weren't so lucky. During the time that they were waiting to get into treatment, some continued to use and are still using today; others were found dead of an overdose.

In 2015, 428 people died in New Hampshire as a result of a drug overdose. This means that per capita, we have one of the worst overdose rates in the country. In a situation this dire, we don't have time to be placed on waiting lists. We don't have the luxury of waiting to find a place that will be covered by the insurance that we have.

My plan is simple:

Make treatment more available by giving tax incentives for people to open up treatment centers in New Hampshire, allot more revenue to help fund these treatment centers, and make the insurance plans cover more treatment centers around the state.

These are necessary, common sense reforms that will save an untold number of lives. Please sign this petition so that we can finally do something about this horrible epidemic.

Thank you for your time.