JD Vance looked to the border after his addiction nonprofit fizzled
CINCINNATI ? JD Vance had lofty ambitions to address the nation's drug epidemic.
Riding the success of his memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," Vance announced back in 2017 that he and his family would return to Ohio after a stint in San Francisco. He wanted to do something with his new platform, he told news outlets at the time. The result: A nonprofit that aimed to tackle the opioid crisis and push for education reform to help middle class Americans.
The issue is personal for Vance, whose mother is 10 years sober after struggling with an addiction to prescription drugs and heroin.
"Maybe it's access to some of the anti-opioid medications that are out there," Vance told NPR in 2016. "Maybe it's sort of addressing this at the church and community level and figuring out what those folks have been doing already and trying to scale it to a broader statewide effort. But I am sort of unashamed to say that I don't have the specific answers right now."
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Fast forward to now: Vance's nonprofit, Our Ohio Renewal, fizzled out. His work in the Senate focuses more on drugs flowing from the U.S.-Mexico border than it does treatment programs or community funding. Yet as former President Donald Trump's vice-presidential nominee, Vance says he wants to put substance use disorders and recovery at the forefront of his mission.
Advocates for the Rust Belt and Appalachian regions that shaped Vance's childhood – and were crushed by the weight of the opioid epidemic – say more is needed than border control to curb overdose deaths.
"It's as likely to make things worse as make things better," Dennis Cauchon, founder of Harm Reduction Ohio, said. "Border controls are why we have fentanyl rather than heroin."
JD Vance and Ohio's failed 'renewal'
On its since-deleted website, Our Ohio Renewal pledged to "lead on solutions to opioid abuse" and highlighted interviews with Vance about addiction, housing and economic development. Instead, it barely got off the ground.
The nonprofit raised roughly $221,000 in 2017 and spent most of its revenue on overhead costs and travel, according to tax filings first uncovered by Business Insider and reviewed by USA TODAY Network Ohio. More than $63,000 for management services went to Jai Chabria, a longtime friend and political adviser to Vance. The organization also paid $45,000 for a survey on the "social, cultural and general welfare needs of Ohio citizens."
In subsequent years, Our Ohio Renewal brought in less than $50,000 and therefore wasn't required to report its earnings. No IRS activity occurred after 2020, and it failed to submit a statement of continued existence to the state of Ohio in 2021.
A related entity ? Our Ohio Renewal Foundation ? reported to the IRS as recently as last year, but never raised more than $50,000. The foundation will soon be dissolved, and Chabria intends to funnel its remaining funds ? about $11,000 ? to Appalachian charities.
Keith Humphreys, a psychologist and Stanford professor who specializes in addiction disorders, sat on Our Ohio Renewal's advisory board and said he shared information with Vance as part of his role. He said Vance asked him questions about prevention programs and why there weren't more beds for people in treatment.
Humphreys said the organization didn't take off because the person tasked with leading it ? Vance's friend Jamil Jivani ? was diagnosed with cancer. Jivani did not respond to messages seeking comment but told Business Insider, "I think we could've done a lot more if I didn't get sick."
"I don't think it was a lack of good intentions," Humphreys said.
Vance group sponsored controversial researcher
In 2019, Columbus Monthly reported one of the group's only documented feats: Sponsoring a year-long residency in southeastern Ohio for Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and research fellow for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Later that year, ProPublica revealed that Satel cited research from Purdue Pharma as she questioned whether OxyContin was to blame for the opioid epidemic.
Satel also served on Our Ohio Renewal's advisory board, according to an archive of its website.
In an email to USA TODAY Network Ohio, Satel said she performed "standard psychiatric care" for patients struggling with substance use in Ironton, part of Ohio's Appalachian region in Lawrence County. She worked with the Ironton-Lawrence County Community Action Organization, which did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the Associated Press, part of Satel's roughly $70,000 residency included writing a book about her findings, which has yet to be published.
More: These two moms lost sons to opioids. Now they’re on opposite sides at the Supreme Court.
"I expect my book on my experience working with the CAO and with patients in Ironton, Ohio to be published next year," she wrote in an email.
Satel would not comment on Vance's current politics, but said he was interested in her ideas and "made it possible for me to be helpful" in Ironton.
Vance, for his part, declined to renew an association with AEI after Satel's residency ended and expressed concern about her headlining an event for the institute about the opioid epidemic, the AP reported.
"The idea was to treat patients in a place that didn't have clinicians, and she did that," Chabria said. "There was a lot of good that was actually done in the short term for people in a very, very underserved area. Would it have been great if there was no link to Purdue Pharma? Absolutely. But that's something that we learned later."
Kathy Ross, an intake coordinator at Lawrence County Recovery who has worked in recovery in the area since 2015, said she was not aware of Satel or her residency. Ross, who is 14 years sober, disagreed with Satel's stance that people rarely get addicted to opioids prescribed to them.
"Majority of folks age 40 or older (in Lawrence County), you ask them when they first started using and they'll tell you it was when they got their wisdom teeth pulled out because doctors overprescribed a narcotic for that pain," she said.
"I wasn't a party animal," she added. "I got addicted to medications that were prescribed to me, and I really didn't have a vast understanding of that."
Most voters in Lawrence County, 72%, voted for Trump in 2020. Ross wasn't sure if a Trump-Vance ticket would improve recovery efforts in the county seat of Ironton.
How has Vance addressed the opioid crisis in since becoming a senator?
When Vance ran for Senate, one of his campaign ads began with a question that generated headlines: "Are you a racist?" The television spot highlighted Vance's support for a border wall and criticized President Joe Biden's immigration policies.
"I nearly lost my mother to the poison coming across our border," he said in the ad. "No child should grow up an orphan."
That's largely where Vance centers his message as a U.S. senator and vice-presidential candidate, including during a recent visit to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Vance is a primary and co-sponsor on several Senate bills dealing with the southern border, including one allowing certain states to erect "temporary protective fencing ... to deter illegal immigration." He signed onto legislation by colleagues that would crack down on fentanyl trafficking and criminalize xylazine, also known as tranq, which is increasingly being mixed with fentanyl in the illicit market.
Some experts worry that increased border security could actually lead to more overdose deaths. Ohio Department of Health data analyzed by Harm Reduction Ohio, a statewide nonprofit that distributes overdose-reversing medication, showed overdose deaths peaked in Ohio in May of 2020, about two months after the U.S.-Mexico border was closed due to COVID-19.
Fentanyl began replacing heroin in Ohio in 2014 because it's easier to transport and conceal, said Cauchon, who formerly worked for USA TODAY.
"They're trying to get around border restrictions," he said. "So what will happen is the market will easily, as it has, move to smaller, more compact, more potent, more dangerous, more deadly drugs."
Almost all fentanyl seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials happen at the southern border, agency statistics show. Officials seized nearly 27,000 pounds of the drug last year, making up about 11% of their total seizures at that border.
Border Patrol data also shows most fentanyl seizures at the southern border happen at legal checkpoints. The data does not identify whether smugglers are American citizens or not, but these checkpoints are typically used by citizens and natural-born citizens applying for entry into the U.S. with proper documentation. Shipments of goods, sometimes concealing fentanyl, can also be seized at these checkpoints.
Could Vance help recovery efforts as VP?
Chabria said he expects Vance to take a "personal interest" in addiction recovery if he becomes vice president, but what that agenda would look like is unclear. Beyond border bills, legislation to combat the opioid crisis or enhance addiction treatment is largely missing from Vance's Senate record.
Vance's campaign did not make him available for an interview or outline his policy goals. In a recent interview with NBC News, Vance alluded to the role of Medicare and Medicaid in helping people with substance use disorder but did not tie that to a specific proposal.
"I think one of the roles that I can play is just a basic leadership role and remind people that there is hope on the other side of addiction – there is recovery," Vance told the outlet.
Experts point to a few things needed in Ohio. Thanks to millions of federal dollars, first funneled under Trump's administration and continued under Biden, Ohio recovery programs have become more widespread and effective, Cauchon said. But the state could use more methadone clinics, "the gold standard" in medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.
Groups like Project Dawn and Harm Reduction Ohio that distribute naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, have also seen success. The Ohio Department of Health said the medication distributed by Project Dawn reversed over 20,000 overdoses last year.
According to health department records, overdoses were the sixth-leading cause of death in Middletown, Vance's hometown, in 2023. The city lost its harm reduction site last year due to a lack of community support.
Humphreys believes Vance has a unique opportunity to address the opioid crisis, given what he experienced during his youth. But he said the issue requires a "comprehensive policy approach" and so far hasn't seen Vance lead the charge.
"I think it was a really good moment for the country when he cited his mother and people applauded somebody in recovery," Humphreys said of Vance's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July. "You also need to do more than that."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: How JD Vance's opioid addiction nonprofit fizzled out
