Patrick Kennedy is expected to attend Saturday’s meeting on substance abuse issues at Portsmouth Town Hall.

PORTSMOUTH — Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy will join Gov. Gina Raimondo and others for a “community conversation” on substance abuse issues this Saturday, May 5, in Portsmouth.

The meeting, which is open to all, will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Town Council chambers at Portsmouth Town Hall, 2200 East Main Road.

Sen. Jim Seveney (D-District 11) of Portsmouth, who helped arrange the event, said the meeting will touch upon numerous topics related to substance abuse issues, as well as the need for more funding for local task forces like the Portsmouth Prevention Coalition and its regional counterpart, the Newport County Prevention Coalition.

“I’m working with Tom Coderre, Gov. Raimondo’s point guy on the whole substance abuse prevention and treatment initiatives,” said Sen. Seveney. Mr. Coderre is a former state senator who was appointed by President Barack Obama as a senior adviser to the assistant secretary for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

“Patrick Kennedy is visiting the area and doing a couple of things around the state on Friday and they asked him if he’d stick around on Saturday and he said yes,” he added. “The governor and Kennedy want to have what they’re calling a community conversation on the substance abuse problem — a dialogue on what we’re doing and what we can do better.”

The senator said he expects Mr. Kennedy, a mental health advocate who’s acknowledged his own struggles with substance abuse, to be an active participant at the meeting. 

“He’s a (former) Portsmouth guy anyway,” said Sen. Seveney. (Mr. Kennedy, who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Rhode Island's 1st congressional district from 1995 to 2011, once owned a home off Wapping Road.)

Also attending will be other members of the governor’s staff, representatives from the police and fire departments and members of local prevention coalitions.

“This is an opportunity for Portsmouth to have a discussion with people who are very influential for getting things done,” said Ray Davis, coordinator of the Portsmouth Prevention Coalition and assistant director of the Newport County Prevention Coalition. “This is an opportunity for them to hear what Portsmouth’s stake in this is, as well as all of Newport County. Having Mr. Kennedy there, due to his own personal things he went through and the fact that he was our rep, gives us a little more credence for what we’re trying to do.”

Wide-ranging discussion

Sen. Seveney said he anticipates a freewheeling discussion Saturday that will address a wide range of topics related to substance abuse issues.

“I hope it runs the whole gamut — like how come the fire department gets naxolone for free from the hospitals and the cops have to buy it?” he said. (Naloxone, which is sold under the brandname Narcan, is a medication used to block the effects of opioids, especially during an overdose.)

Sen. Seveney has introduced several bills addressing substance abuse prevention issues. One of them, The Uniformed Controlled Substances Act (S2025), which he said is also being supported in the House by Rep. John Edwards (D-District 70), would fix an existing law that was intended to extract $30 from traffic violation fees to go toward substance abuse treatment. 

“Because the law was flawed way back when they wrote it, those fees were never collected. That could be a chunk of change,” Sen. Seveney said.

His “big gripe,” however, is inadequate outside funding for local prevention coalitions.

“The state has created, through a contract, a really nice comprehensive network of regional substance abuse prevent coalitions, but we’re not giving them any money,” he said. “The contracts are structured as such to gradually reduce state funding to sort of force the communities to pick it up.

“It’s a real problem. These people are real professionals with professional credentials, and we don’t have the money to pay them. It’s turned into a part-time endeavor.”

The same goes for student assistance counselors in the public schools, he said. “The school systems kick in some money and an organization funded by state pays the rest to place them in schools, but there’s not enough of them. We’ve got one at the high school (Kelly O’Loughlin) who spends one day a week at the middle school. These are good initiatives, but they’re not being funded enough. What it really comes down to is, we need more money,” he said.

Mr. Davis said he’s grateful that Saturday’s meeting will be held locally. “I’m glad that the conversation is going to be here in Portsmouth and for the governor, especially, to be able to see what we’ve managed to accomplish down in Newport County and to hear about the things we still need to address,” he said.