Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, one of 39 attorneys general nationwide urging Congress to pass the Youth Substance Use Prevention and Awareness Act, said on Newsmax on Wednesday that the legislation is a vital key in keeping young people away from drugs.
“I can tell you right now as a prosecutor, some of the worst, most horrible discussions I’ve ever had to have are with parents watching their children slip away into the web of addiction,” Sunday said on “National Report.”
The bipartisan bill, introduced in the Senate earlier this month by Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del., seeks to amend the omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to provide consistent federal funding for evidence-based public service announcements and youth-led campaigns and other outreach methods to prevent substance abuse.
“What this does is it creates a dynamic where we can have children work together to create public service announcements,” Sunday said. “What I have learned over all these years is that when you have what we call a credible messenger, it helps us educate people. The goal here is to keep children from turning to drugs in the first place. The best way to save lives, the best way to make our communities safer, is to prevent it. And that’s essentially what this does.”
The message, he added, should not be political.
“When you talk about protecting families and protecting children, this is a human issue,” said Sunday. “As a career prosecutor, that’s how I’ve always viewed my job.”
There are many families who remain in the throes of addiction and have been ripped apart, he added.
“I firmly believe that one of the most impactful ways that we can make our communities safer is by doing everything we can to support children,” he said. “We have to empower them to control their lives and put them in a position where they can help each other.”
Peer pressure is one of the most powerful forces, and could help stem drug or alcohol abuse among young people, said Sunday.
Currently, the top issue is fentanyl, he said.
“When I was a kid, if you made a mistake, you might not feel well for a day or two, but in today’s world, a mistake from a child could equal death,” said Sunday. “That’s not hyperbole. It’s an absolute fact because of the strength of fentanyl that’s finding its way into everything.”
The stakes are so high that “we have to do everything we can,” he said. “And this is one of those tools that we can utilize to help prevent this in the first place.”
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