- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of State of Affairs with Steve Adubato has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

I'm gonna introduce two very important friends of our series and folks who are gonna offer very important information.

Angelo Valente is Executive Director of Partnership for A Drug-Free New Jersey and the Ray Lucas, former NFL quarterback, high school football coach, Rutgers alum.

Great football player there.

Hey, first of all, excuse me for a second, Angelo, let's get this out of the way.

Ray, how's your team doing as we speak right now, your high school team?

- I tell you what, we're one-and-one right now.

We won our first game last Friday, but on Saturday we went to Cal Park and we got our, for lack of a better term, our rear ends handed to us, which was probably a good thing.

We were riding a little bit too high after the first victory, and sometimes you need to get punched in the face to get brought back down to reality.

So we're doing great.

We're looking forward to Friday night at home against an Elmore Park team that comes in that kind of runs the same thing as Cal Park does.

So I'm, I'm eager to see what my kids, how they're gonna respond after getting a big loss like that.

- All good, by the way, we're taping on the 28th of September, it will be seen after.

We don't know what Ray's team's record's gonna be by then.

- It better be in the plus, I know that.

- Angelo, do us a favor.

Let everybody know as we put up the website for the Partnership for Drug-Free New Jersey, what is it?

And make the connection to Ray.

- Sure.

So, what we're doing, Steve is we're working once again with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey to expand our Knockout, opioid abuse town hall series.

And what we're doing this time around, and this is the third two-year cycle is we're focusing in on athletes.

And that's why we're so pleased that Ray has been able to join us because we think it's so important that people that are involved in athletes at every level, but certainly at the high school level, and even at the grade school level, that they understand the importance of knowing the dangers of getting prescribed an opioid if there's a sports injury, or if someone is in some sort of a situation where they need to go for therapy.

It's crucial that this information gets out, that opioids are not the answer and that we have to look at alternatives to deal with acute pain.

- By the way, as the website goes up for the Partnership for Drug-Free New Jersey, reach out, go to the website, get help, get support.

Hey, Ray, I don't want to assume everybody knows your story other than being a great athlete, great broadcaster, great coach right now.

You told our producers, and you said this publicly quote, as it relates to your addiction to opioids, you went from 125 pills a month to 1400 pills a month.

- Yeah.

Well, 1400 pills might've been an understatement, Steve, to be honest with you.

I think I was probably at close to 1600 pills a month at my worst.

You know, the crazy thing about being an addict and, you know, telling your story because I'm not ashamed of it.

I'm a survivor.

I came through the other side where a lot of people haven't and, you know, when Knockout Opioid Abuse comes to the table and I did my format up at Rutgers, and they're doing great works.

And the athletes are, I'm not saying, you know, centralized group because drugs don't care what you do for a living.

If you're an athlete, a CEO, it doesn't make a difference.

It comes to all classes and doesn't care about religion, creed, or race.

So, for me to tell my story, I want these younger kids to know that there's other alternatives that weren't presented to me back when I became an athlete, you know what I mean?

You get surgery, you're playing in the NFL, you take pills, whatever you gotta do to stay on the field.

And I was willing to do that and I'm not sorry for that.

But I was the person that took the 125 milligrams, 125 pills a month to 1600 pills a month.

That is pointing the thumb, not the finger.

Now, as you're an addict, you know, you always point the finger.

It's always somebody else's fault.

Instead, I took the approach as find out what's wrong with me and how I can get better.

And then maybe I could help somebody else.

So yeah, at my worst, Steve, I was about 1600 pills, sometimes 80 a day.

I mean, I took enough pills in one day to kill a small village.

- You know Angelo, as we listen to Ray, you hope and pray that he's having an impact on kids and parents and others right now.

And you know he has an impact on what he does every day.

But Angelo, let me ask you something.

To what degree do you believe the coaching culture, the sports culture today is where it needs to be in acknowledging this opioid crisis and the abuse that's taking place right now and frankly, a culture that has supported it for a long time.

- Well, Steve, I think that's changing.

I think over the last several years, unfortunately, we've seen so many families that have been impacted by the opiate epidemic in New Jersey and throughout the country.

And in particular, we also have seen that athletes because of the nature of what they do, their situations that they find themselves in where injuries are common, that athletes are much more likely to be exposed to an opioid.

So, it's crucial that the coaching staff, that certainly parents also become very knowledgeable about this particular issue.

You know, as a dad of three daughters, all of whom played high school sports, I mean, we found ourselves in emergency rooms, unfortunately more often than we want to.

- Me too, Angelo, three daughters.

- And one thing that we knew was that when it came time for that prescription to be written, you know, we said, no.

We said, no, let's look at alternatives to opiates.

And I think that's what other parents have to do.

They have to know that there's alternatives, especially dealing with acute pain.

- Okay, so let's talk about alternatives.

You mentioned it, Angelo, as did Ray.

Ray, what specific alternatives to opioids for pain should we be putting out there in a credible responsible way here on public broadcasting?

- Well, here's the thing.

I mean, Steve, when you look at this as a whole, right?

After I became clean and I'm still gonna be an addict for the rest of my life, but I had close to probably 14-15 surgeries since I was out of rehab.

So for 11 and a half years, I had a neck surgery that was about four hours.

They put a four inch steel plate in my neck, screws, four screws up and down the plate.

And I didn't take a pill.

They did put blockers, which I found out after a knee surgery, I had blown my knee out and they were gonna put blockers in there.

Like, do you want pills?

And I said, oh duh, you know who I am?

You know I can't take anything.

And my doctor, Dr. McInerney said, all right, Ray, don't worry about anything, we're gonna put a nerve block here.

Now, the key component to the nerve block is this, Steve, for 24 to 48 hours, you can't feel your leg, but you can't feel the pain either, right?

And after that window, you really don't need the pills.

You can deal with the pain.

You know what I mean?

It's just so freely given.

And it was sold on such a there's no, you're not gonna become addictive to it.

It's the miracle drug.

Everybody's gonna feel great about it.

And they were wrong in a big way.

I think opioids changed the face of addiction for all our generations to come.

I mean, it doesn't care what class, like I said.

I mean, the rehab I was at was a very high-end rehab.

I was in there with CEOs, CFOs, heart surgeons, doctors, lawyers.

You name it, they were there.

And then some, young from a small town kid from Harrison, New Jersey and NFL player.

You don't think addicts are people like me, people like you, Steve, or people like Angelo, for that matter.

You just don't picture them.

You see the guy on the street that's begging you for some change.

That is not the case with opioids.

It changed everything for everybody.

- By the way, you mentioned Dr. McInerney, and I know exactly who you're talking about.

He is a first-class sports physician.

He gets it.

Angelo, let me ask you this.

COVID and the opioid crisis.

Give me 30 seconds to a minute on that.

- Well, I think, Steve, in some ways New Jersey was much better prepared than many other states.

We had laws in effect that had required conversations between patients and doctors when they were prescribing an opiate, which that law now is going to be introduced in Congress and hopefully it'll pass.

And that law will be replicated throughout the country.

So I think there was a great awareness that took place.

Certainly, the series that took place between Horizon Foundation and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and the Partnership, the Knockout series was an excellent way for people to be prepared and stay, to be knowledgeable and to be able to help protect their families.

And I think that that really was demonstrated by looking at how New Jersey fared to the rest of the country with regard to the opiate epidemic during this pandemic.

- Final comments, Ray.

Words right now, just a few moments, if you could, 30 seconds or less to all the parents and the kids out there who need to hear the message you're about to deliver from your experience, please.

- Here's the thing, Steve, in 30 seconds, you know, it's hard for me to do because I love talking.

I love being on, I'm not on TV no more.

So I'm trying to use this, no, I'm only kidding.

Here's the message, in all seriousness, ask the frigging question.

Do not be afraid to ask the question to any physician.

Your children, know who's coaching your children, because that does come into it.

I am now a head coach and I do worry and I don't sleep.

I don't have sleepless nights because I'm always worried about the kids.

That's not always necessarily the case, but here's the silver lining.

If I can do it, anyone can do it because I know that these younger minds aren't, I was an adult when I became an addict.

These are young minds, very impressionable minds.

So ask the question, hold the medication, ask the doctor if there's alternate methods so your kids don't have to take the pills, like a nerve block or something like that.

And then go from there.

And if you need any help, like I said, you know, my life's an open book.

I'm not ashamed of anything.

I'm a survivor.

And that's my word I'm trying to get out there to everybody.

- Hey, Angelo, thank you.

And Ray, thank you.

Not only from a Rutgers grad, for everything you did for the program and your work with the Jets as a QB and all the work that you've done and previously on SNY.

Just thank you for that.

But more importantly, thank you for the work that you're doing every day to fight this opioid addiction crisis.

Thank you, Ray.

Thank you, Angelo.

- Thank you, thanks Steve.

- Well done, guys.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Dr. Monique Swift, who is a racial trauma expert and the President of the New Jersey Association of Black Psychologists.

Dr.

Swift, great to have you with us.

- Thank you, Steve, it's great to be here.

- Dr.

Swift, the term racial trauma, what is it, and put it in context as to why it matters so much.

- Okay, so, racial trauma, we understand trauma essentially is the lasting impact, adverse impact on our social, psychological, emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing as well, that results from some sort of event that was experienced as physically or emotionally harmful, or threatening in some kind of way.

So racial trauma is essentially that, but predicated upon some sort of race-based event, race-based insult.

That's kind of a, I think, a very generic way of putting it.

I think what's missing in that frame is the recognition of how devastatingly, racial trauma impacts the person.

And particularly, when we're talking about racial trauma with black people there, you're talking about an experience that has eviscerated psychological fortitude, you're talking about an experience that has eroded the self-efficacy of black people.

You're talking about an experience that has completely diminished individual and collective efficacy for people, and leads to cycles of trauma.

So this now becomes an intergenerational pattern of experience.

- But doctor, how does it play out in the world of healthcare, specifically racial trauma?

- Okay, so in the world of healthcare, you're seeing, I often lean on what was given to us by Dr. Ken Hardy, who describes the wounds of, what he calls, the wounds of racial oppression and how it appears in people.

Essentially, he operationalized into four points.

The first one is internalized devaluation.

And that is what results from persistent messaging of white superiority and black inferiority.

- Dr.

I'm sorry for interrupting, give us a concrete example of what you mean.

- Okay, so for example, simple example, because of the experience of being black and experiencing the racial trauma, there is a phenomenon that we call imposter phenomenon, that is fairly common, it is not exclusive to black people, but it's fairly common for people who experience racial traumas, such that when no matter how accomplished you are, no matter how educated you are, no matter how, you know, much status you have, or how affluent you are, there's this kind of voice that speaks to you and says, "You're not good enough, you don't belong here.

They're gonna find out that you really don't belong."

So there's this persistent voice, that results from the internalization of racial oppression and racial trauma, that really kind of speaks to that.

And we see that, but with very high level people.

In fact, Michelle Obama speaks about that in the tour that she does and the experience that she has as educated as many doors as she's been behind, she experiences the same thing.

- Staying on this, into the health care.

So an African-American patient wants to be seen by an African-American physician.

First of all, there are not enough, that's a whole separate issue that we've covered, and we'll continue to talk about.

What is the potential racial trauma that could happen in a situation like that, where there is a patient who happens to be black with his or her family, being treated by a white physician.

In and of itself, there's no trauma, but what's the potential for that?

- Yeah, so what tends to happen is we live, we function, we operate in white normative culture.

And so, often what is left out of the therapy room, what people don't bring in is the fact that people have a racialized experience, black people, brown people have a racialized experience.

And often, that experience lends to whatever it is that brings them into the therapy session.

When that is omitted, when we don't delve into that, because we assume that we all have the same experience, that we're all on a level playing field, when we neglect to delve into directly and openly issues of race, and what the experiences have been- - I'm sorry for interrupting, but I need to say this because there are many people watching that are thinking this, "disproportionately white."

But I'm gonna put it out there.

You've heard this, you know this and I need to get to it in the context of what you just said.

"I don't see color, so therefore I can't be racist."

- Yes.

- You say.

(Dr. Monique chuckles) - So first of all, that is one of the things that I call a conversation stopper, when we're trying to kind of enter into this conversation of race, often people get stuck because of, you know, maybe feelings of guilt because of not wanting to be a party to it.

It's a dirty word to be a racist, right?

While wanna distance ourselves from any association with that, so, "I don't see race."

But we all do see race, we do see race, however I- - Even if.

- I wanna- - Even if we don't think we do?

- Even if we don't think we do.

There's what we call implicit bias.

Because we're not consciously thinking, we have trained ourselves, black, white, and all in between, we've trained ourselves to not think in terms of race, because race doesn't exist, that's the polite way to enter into society and to act as though race does not matter, or it doesn't exist.

And so, therefore, we try to take it off the table, but implicitly, unconsciously, we are recognizing and processing and we are acting with bias because that is the food that we drink, that's the water that we swim in.

It is filled with racial bias against black and brown people.

- Quick followup, someone says, "I'm not racist."

You say, "Even if you buy it, it's not enough, because you who you need to be anti-racist."

And it shouldn't be in air quotes, it's what it is.

What does that mean?

- So that they can't talk.

- What's the distinction.

- So there's an analogy that I often use.

There's an analogy that I use; is using a cup of coffee.

We've all had a cup of coffee, and we stir that cup of coffee with a spoon.

I liken the spoon to a racist.

As you're stirring that coffee, it creates a current in the cup of coffee.

And I liken that current to racism.

Racists create that current of racism.

If you take a white marshmallow and you drop it in the coffee, what does that marshmallow going to do?

It's gonna go with that flow.

It's gonna continue in that current.

For all those who say, "I'm not racist."

That's how I liken those people, to that marshmallow floating in the current, you're not doing anything to stop the tide of racism, you're just really going with the flow of the racism.

- An anti-racist will do what?

- Anti-racist will stop that, interrupt, and disrupt the current of racism and send this dynamic in a different direction.

- Which means to push back with family, friends, and others around us, including ourselves, in which we see it, experience it, sense it, smell it, whatever, and call it out?

- All of the above, absolutely.

And then, begin to move in ways that create a different way of being.

and so much more, she's President of the New Jersey Association of Black Psychologists.

Doctor Swift do not let this be the last conversation we have together, okay?

- I hope not Steve, I really look forward to coming back again.

- It won't be, thank you doctor.

I'm Steve Adubato, more importantly, that's Doctor Swift, we'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Dr. Charlene Brown-Wyands who's a Professor of Department of Justice Studies at Berkeley College, one of our higher ed partners.

Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you so much for having me, Steve.

- And thank you for your 26 years of service in the NYPD.

- Thank you.

- Put this in perspective, we've been doing so many programs around police reform, but from a variety of perspectives.

We need to do more from the police perspective.

What would you say from your experience and your expertise academically and in the field the current status... Let me put it this way.

Is there a stigma of being a cop right now?

- I would definitely say that there is a stigma of being a police officer.

When you are in law enforcement, that is something that officers do carry with them.

But with the heightened events that have happened in the past few years, that stigma has been almost exacerbated a bit.

I can also relate back to an incident that happened with myself and a colleague during the Sean Bell shooting, which was years ago.

And I was on the phone with a colleague and while we were talking, we were both getting ready to prepare to manage a protest, we were both executives in the police department, and he stopped and said, "someone just looked at me and scowled at me "and I don't recall the last time I've been looked at "that way before."

So those are the type of reactions that officers every day are subjected to because officers represent the law, so they become the object of the attention and that adds to any stigma that officers already have.

- Doctor, how can we achieve a reasonable balance, a semblance of balance between police reform, which is long overdue, and supporting the men and women on the front lines in blue?

Can we do that and, if so, how?

- Well, I certainly think it can be achieved, but it is not an overnight process.

I think, first of all, both groups have to really remember that we are one and we need each other to work together.

That being said, I think police departments need to look inward and work on culture shift and changing the culture to meet the new needs and demands of communities.

And communities need to also get together and express the realization that they do want officers.

- They need officers.

They need police in the community.

- Yes, and in times they're both saying the same thing.

- I shouldn't say they, we need, we all need.

Correct?

- Correct.

Communities need police and police need cooperation of communities to help them solve crimes.

So I think both groups need to internally do some work and then come together and acknowledge that that is what both sides want and to figure out the best way to build together.

And it becomes offering an olive branch on each side in that longstanding trust building that has to happen.

- Boy, that word trust.

Let me ask you this.

At Berkeley, what are you and your colleagues doing to confront these issues directly?

- So for myself and all my colleagues and many of the professionals at Berkeley College have worked in law enforcement, so we bring the stories, we bring the realities to our students in the classroom, and we have those frank conversations head on with the students.

From my personal experience, many of the students that are in our classrooms, they feel the stigma against the police and they express it, but they also realize that we need police and some of them still want to become police officers.

So what we make sure that we do is that we really try to hit hard on what those feelings are, address those concerns with the students as we're teaching them the substantive issues and laws and policies that they need to know to position themselves to become successful criminal justice professionals.

- But before I let you go, and before we end this program, Doctor, acting like this isn't real, acting like we can sweep it under the rug the history, the horrific killing of George Floyd, and with those other officers standing there as Derek Chauvin did what he did and we all saw it, we can't act like it didn't happen.

We need to understand it, put it in perspective.

Of course that's not most cops!

Of course that's the exception!

But we can't act like it didn't happen.

A few seconds, go ahead.

- Correct, and it did happen and everyone is going to walk around with that memory of what happened.

And that's where change is going to start, instead of painting the brush to try to act like it didn't happen.

So acknowledge that it did happen and to work together from there to build those successful partnerships that community and policing need to continue to sustain and thrive and to evolve into our next century of policing and bring that reform and that reimagination that everyone is looking for.

- And finally, from my perspective, it's not my job to editorialize, but that was the most graphic and one of the most recent of a whole range of incidents, but there's so many other cops who want to do the right thing, who do the right thing every day, but we need to have awkward, difficult, but incredibly important and real conversations, and that's what we're here for.

And, Doctor, I want to thank you so much for helping us.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

It's been a pleasure.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Valley Bank.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Summit Health The Fidelco Group.

PSE&G.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by The North Ward Center.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

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