Correspondence with the Office of Congresswoman Susan Bonamici
From: Brad Mersereau
To: ryan.seed@mail.house.gov
Subject: Please Forward My Attempted Email Correspondence To Congresswoman Bonamici
Dear Ryan,
Thank you for listening in today’s phone conversation and for your creative solution of receiving and forwarding my thoughts about our nation’s current addiction crisis. Our mission @ www.bradmersereau.com is to honor my sister Laura’s memory with addiction prevention and recovery resources for those who want to grab on. I am including 3 previously attempted emails.
Thanks again for your time and attention. I will hope for a response from Congresswoman Bonamici.
Sincerely Brad Mersereau
p.s. Our Sobriety Pledge and Anniversary progress has continued since my initial September 2017 email.
Email to Susan Bonamici, U.S. Representative from Oregon
Sent: September 8, 2017
Dear Congressman Bonamici,
I am a champion for my sister Laura’s memory and responded to your September 8. 2017 email inquiry soliciting constituents’ opinions about important issues published on our www.bradmersereau.com Letter #44 webpage.
The Surgeon General has identified addiction as a primary public health challenge. In the past 10 years @ www.bradmersereau.com/lauraspledge.html we have secured 315 Sobriety pledges from courageous teens. Joseph Califano Jr’s 3 decades plus of CASA work through Columbia University suggest that these youngsters will avoid the addictive path which consumes 10% or over 40 million Americans. 1079 Recovery champions celebrate 18,800 clean & sober years on our Sobriety Anniversary webpage www.bradmersereau.com/sobriety.html
Smoking, drinking & drug abuse cause annual medical complications resulting in the preventable deaths of over 100,000 Americans. How may I work with your office to be a more effective addiction prevention and recovery champion in Portland Oregon?
Please review our website www.bradmersereau.com & please respond.
Sincerely, Brad Mersereau
Sent December 10, 2017
I followed up with 2 phone calls to your local office in October and November and still have not heard from you or a staff member. Do you agree with the Surgeon General that addiction is a primary health challenge? Our website is a valuable resource which we would like to share. Would you like to partner with me and through your considerable influence make a difference in shaping public policy that could potentially through effective early addiction prevention techniques save thousands of lives? The following 6 refusal skills would benefit all district wide school drug and alcohol education programs www.bradmersereau.com/lauraspledge.html I sincerely hope that a staff member might spend 15 minutes studying our website video, audio and text including personal references.
The favor of your reply is still requested.
Sincerely, Brad Mersereau
p.s. Mayor Tom Potter awarded 2 scholarship for a 2008 essay contest we co-sponsored with Lines for Life about drug and alcohol refusal skills (secure link) www.bradmersereau.com/student-essays.html The 125 essays offer relevant thoughtful content for today’s youth. This resource is yours to share as you see fit.
please visit bonamici.house.gov/contact/email. I look forward to our continued correspondence. (I tried with no success and therefore called Ryan in your Beaverton office)
—–Original Message—–
From: brad@bradmersereau.com
Sent: 5/23/2018
To: “Representative Suzanne Bonamici”
Subject: Re: Fighting for Our Communities: Overcoming the Opioid Crisis
Dear Representative Bonamici, I initially sent an email September 8, 2017 with no response from your office even after I called twice requesting a reply.
I am now including my modeled Ted Talk podcast from September 2017 which is germane: https://www.youtube.com/
The addiction epidemic has been identified by our Surgeon general as public health issue #1. It is much larger than the prescription opioid crisis. 85% of our nations’ 40,000,000 alcoholics never seek help. Your legislation is a start but we are losing more lives to smoking and drinking daily than on 9/11! I have alliances with 10 partners in Portland including Union Gospel Mission https://vimeo.com and Central City Concern to address our local addiction crisis. www.architecture-bc.com/lauras-place/ What more do you plan to do at the national level to slow the trajectory of the current addiction public health crisis? I believe that a massive education process will be necessary to reverse the slow suicides of so many. I hope that you agree and hope that you will respond to my inquiry in a timely manner.
Sincerely, Brad Mersereau.
From: Representative Suzanne Bonamici
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2018
To: brad@bradmersereau.com
Subject: Fighting for Our Communities: Overcoming the Opioid Crisis
News from Representative Suzanne Bonamici
Dear Mr. Mersereau,
I’ve had more than a dozen community conversations about the opioid epidemic and the incredible toll it is taking on our families and communities. The statics about the opioid crisis are alarming: according to the Oregon Health Authority, three Oregonians die each week from prescription opioid overdose.
Stunning as they are, the statistics alone don’t tell the full story. As a mom and a policy maker, it’s the heartbreaking stories about the lives changed — and the lives lost — that stay with me. It’s essential that we approach this crisis in a way that honors those lives and recognizes that addiction is a disease, not a moral failing.
I recently released a report titled Fighting for Our Communities: Overcoming the Opioid Crisis. I hope you’ll take a look, and share your feedback with me. The report details the issues and problems that came up repeatedly in my conversations with Oregonians, and outlines the solutions that I’ll be fighting for in Congress.
One common theme I heard over and over again was about the difficulty of disposing unused prescription drugs. For instance, the staff at Providence St. Vincent pharmacy told me that people came in with suitcases full of unused medicine when their disposal site first opened. That’s why I wrote The Safe Disposal of Opioids Act to make it easier to dispose of unused medications. The bill will help pharmacies install and maintain drug disposal bins. These new disposal boxes — about 10,000 of them nationwide — will be funded by a small fee paid for by the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioids. We must hold pharmaceutical companies that manufacture opioids accountable for their role in creating this crisis.
I invite you to read my report and share your thoughts with me. Community feedback was essential in developing these priorities and I want to keep the conversation going.
We must do everything we can to prevent addiction, help people access treatment, and reduce the oversupply of prescription drugs that led to this crisis. In Congress, I’m committed to holding opioid manufacturers accountable, increasing drug disposal options, and securing more resources to help Oregonians cope with the deadly opioid epidemic.
Sincerely, Susan Bonamici