11th Annual Legislative Day on May 19th, 2010 at the RI Statehouse Rotunda, 2-4 PM:

 

Over 100 people attended / Leslie Miller, Master of Ceremony

Ian Knowles, RICARES' Director, Words of Welcome / Bobby Oliveira, "A Call to Action"

We awarded Dale K. Klatzker, PhD, President of The Providence Center with our RICARES' Advocate of the Year Award.

We awarded RI Representative Scott A. Slater with our RICARES' RI Representative of the Year Award for his work on House Bill No. 8060, also known as "Ban the Box."

We awarded Senator Charles J. Levesque with our RICARES' RI Senator of the Year Award for his work on legislation that will divert more RI Islanders who get arrested for drug charges into treatment instead of prison using the already successful Drug Court Program.

Bruce Reilly from Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) did a great job speaking about their work with Representative Slater on "Ban the Box."

Sol Rodriguez, Executive Director of Open Doors, RI, also did a great job explaining about their work with Senator Levesque on the "Into Treatment, not Prison" legislation.

After our ceremony, our Board and some members attended the day's session of the House and Senate where Representative Slater and Senator Levesque were presented with over 100 letters of support from our members regarding the legislation they were sponsoring on behalf of the recovery community.

May 26, 2009, Report by Ian Knowles, Director, RICARES:

* All photos taken by Leslie Miller (except one w/her in it, taken by Bill Miller)

Over 100 persons in recovery and friends of recovery attended the Annual 2009 RICARES Our 10th Recovery Legislative Day was on on May 26, 2009 in the State House Rotunda. The event was organized by Aaron Kucharski and we were honored to have Susan Storti, PhD as the Master of Ceremonies. Aaron concluded the ceremonies with a call to action (see below).

                 

Aaron Kucharski, "A Call To Action" / Leslie Miller, Aaron Kucharski, Ian Knowles, Registration Table

 

• RI Advocate of the Year – James Gillen 
• National Advocate of the Year – Tom Coderre 
• Legislator of the Year – Senator Josh Miller

 The Featured Speakers were:

• Craig Stenning, MHRH Director
• Leslie Miller, a RICARES member and woman in long-term recovery
• Representative Edwin Pacheco
• Senator Rhoda Perry

 Other legislators for whose presence we are grateful included:

• Senator Mary Ellen Goodwin
• Representative Elaine Coderre
• Representative Peter Martin
• Representative Patricia Serpa
• Representative Arthur Handy
• Senator Teresa Paiva-Weed

       

Attorney Geoffrey Shoos, RICARES member & Rep. Elaine Coderre / Senators Paiva-Weed, Perry & Miller

These legislators clearly indicated by their presence that they are concerned about people with addictions and that they support treatment and recovery services. Please remember and support them.

 We thank the following organizations for demonstrating their support by providing informational tables:

• Butler Hospital
• Caritas of Rhode Island
• Phoenix House
• CODAC
• Institute for Addiction Recovery
• Reckitt-Benckiser, Inc
• RI Council on Alcohol and other Drug Addictions
• SSTAR of RI
• Discovery House
• Faces and Voices of Recovery
• Narcotics Anonymous
• PRO-CAP Community Services
• The Providence Center
• East Bay Center
• Providence Metro
• Mental Health Association of RI
• Drug Courts
• McCauley House
• Midnight Prayer
• Kent House
• Tri-Hab

 The focal issue this year is the indexing of the alcohol tax. Because of this issue, our Legislative Day was the subject of a front page ProJo story, by Steve People, and the subject of a couple of subsequent letters to the Editor. Our intent this year was simply to raise the issue, which has been dormant for a while, and start a discussion about the merits of increasing the alcohol tax.

 The issue is discussed in the following remarks by Ian Knowles, RICARES Director.