Politics & Power Quote by Jim Ramstad

Ramstad’s line is engineered to do two politically difficult things at once: reframe addiction as illness and demand the state treat it like one. The first sentence is a moral reset. “Discrimination” drags chemical addiction out of the realm of private failure and into the civil-rights register, where stigma becomes not just unkind but unjust. That word choice matters because it moves the debate from personal responsibility to public obligation, implicitly rebuking policies that punish use more aggressively than they fund recovery.

The second sentence is the shove. “It is time” repeats like a gavel, turning compassion into urgency and making delay sound like dereliction. Then he ups the stakes with a deliberately arguable superlative: “our Nation’s number one public health problem.” That’s not a neutral statistic; it’s a rhetorical hostage-taking. If Congress accepts the premise, it has to justify why its budgets and laws don’t reflect the claimed priority. If Congress disputes it, it risks looking like it’s minimizing harm or protecting a punitive status quo.

The subtext is that addiction policy has been trapped in a shame-and-crime framework: employers, insurers, courts, and even families treat treatment-seekers as liabilities rather than patients. Ramstad’s intent is to unjam that system by giving lawmakers permission - and pressure - to fund treatment, expand insurance coverage, and soften legal penalties without sounding “soft.” He’s not asking for sympathy; he’s demanding a governing posture that matches the scale of the damage.