Christie stars in ad for addiction hotline

As promised in his State of the State address, Governor Christie has made sure a hotline has been set up that serves as a one stop shopping helpline for addiction services. It's 1-844-REACH NJ. The idea is to make it as simple as possible for people overwhelmed with drug addiction to find help.

He is featured front and center in a 30 second tv ad that will run on New Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York stations. Good for him. It's about as noble a cause as one can find to finish out a second term. The ad is paid for by taxpayers with money from existing contracts with the state Department of Health and state office of Homeland Security. Would you complain about your tax money going towards this? I would hope not. The most gripping part of the ad is the beginning when it tells you how many people will die in the next hour. It's a national statistic, but it's still pretty sobering when you remind yourself that New Jersey's heroin death rate is more than double the national average.

We're losing too many good people to this scourge. I hope this helps. Two weeks ago we ran a poll here asking if you have sympathy for heroin addicts. Sadly, nearly 60% responded no. I thought we had gotten beyond that judgmental era and that we all knew good families with good kids who had been stricken by this. I thought we realized by now that this really can happen to anyone. At least Gov. Christie gets it.

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