Got
some good news
that’s been a long
time coming.
We -
along with AGs from
all 50 states and 6
U.S. territories -
have now reached the final
settlement with
Purdue Pharma and
the Sackler family
for their role in
starting the opioid
epidemic.
This
goes back to the
1990s. Purdue Pharma
- owned by the
Sackler family -
lied to a bunch of
doctors by saying
they had invented a
new opioid pill that
wasn’t addictive.
The
pill was OxyContin,
it was highly addictive,
and it sparked the
prescription pill
crisis, which became
the heroin crisis,
which has become the
fentanyl crisis.
There’s no erasing
the damage they did,
but this settlement
is major
accountability.
It’s
another $150m for
North Carolina,
which brings us up
to $1.6b for
opioid-related
settlements for our
state.
Huge
credit to my
predecessor, Gov.
Stein, who made this
a top priority, as
well as the team at
NCDOJ who spent
years fighting for
this. They delivered.
Smashing
orange cones
Last
week, I got behind
the wheel of a
police vehicle and
was given a simple
instruction:
Don’t
hit the orange
cones.
I was
at the
ribbon-cutting for
the new driving
track at our Justice
Academy - the
premier course in NC
for teaching law
enforcement advanced
driving skills.
I’ve
got a video below,
but before you watch
it, just give me
some grace. It’s a
hard course. The
washout rate is high,
even among seasoned
officers.
So
did I smash some
cones? Yeah,
absolutely. But eventually I
figured it out and
did okay.
And
this is why I’m
grateful to our
Justice Academy
instructors -
they’re training
officers to hit far
fewer cones than I
did.
You
can watch the video here:
The
Lighthouse Fund
This
might surprise you,
but here’s the deal:
As
things stand,
millions of North
Carolinians aren’t
going to hear from
me again until the
next election.
Why?
Because newsletters
like this, social
media, and local
news just don’t
reach as many folks
as you might think.
That’s not ideal.
I’d love to share
with them the fights
we’re taking on,
like this video from
last week. I think
they’d really
appreciate it.
But
we can’t run TV ads
this early. Can’t
afford it.
However, we can run
a monthly digital
message (on YouTube,
Instagram, etc.) to
roughly a million
people in NC.
That’d cost about
$9,500.
So
we’re starting The
Lighthouse Fund.
Once
a month, we’ll
deliver a clear
beacon to a large
group of independent
voters in the form
of a targeted
digital message.
The
goal is to maintain
a baseline level of
awareness so that
when campaign season
gears up, we aren’t
starting from
scratch with those
voters.
Here’s the math: If
we can keep in touch
with roughly 50% of
independent voters
for the next three
years for under 2%
of what we spent for
our last campaign,
that should produce
a strong
return-on-investment
in a state where
elections often come
down to less than 1%
of the vote.
To my
knowledge, this
hasn’t been tried
before - at least in
NC. But with the
number of voters you
can now reach
online, I think it’s
time for a new
approach.
The
most effective way
to support this is a
small, monthly
donation - but of
course, we’d also
appreciate a
one-time
contribution. You
can do either one here (ActBlue)
or here (non-ActBlue).
Thanks for standing
with me.
Jeff
Jackson
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