Christie’s emotional plea on addiction goes viral

“Yet somehow, if it’s heroin or cocaine or alcohol, we say, ‘Ahh, they decided that they’re getting what they deserve, ‘” Christie said.

On Morning Joe just now they ran this video from the Huffington Post showing Christie talking about drug addiction and treatment.

“Whether you like Chris Christie as a politician or not, whether you like him as a candidate or not, his kind of skill at communicating the way you saw him communicate there, on an issue like this, that’s why he still seems like he could be a contender”, Maddow said.

The video has drawn more than 3 million views on Facebook, according to the Post.

“I’m pro-life and I think that if you’re pro-life you’ve gotta be pro-life for the whole life, not just the 9 months they’re in the womb”, he said recently in New Hampshire. “It’s easy to be pro-life for the nine months they’re in the womb. They are ideal in there”.

“But no one came to me and said, ‘Hey, listen, your mother was dumb, she started smoking when she was 16, then after we told her it was bad for her, she kept doing it, so we’re not going to give her chemotherapy, we’re not going to give her radiation, we’re not going to giver her any of that stuff”, Christie said.

“Every life is an individual gift from God”, the Republican presidential candidate said. And so we need to start treating people in this country, and not jailing them.

The New Jersey governor has told the story before-about a friend who died battling a prescription painkiller addiction-but it hadn’t picked up such steam on social media until now. He spent 10 years in and out of rehab. He talked about how his mother tried desperately to quit smoking, but was unable to and eventually ended up with lung cancer as a result. He lost everything, and was found dead at 52 with an empty bottle of Percocet and a quart of vodka.

Christie described an old college friend of his, who went on to lead an extraordinarily successful life, a man who had it all – athletic good looks, a fantastic legal career, a handsome wife and daughters. “This is a disease”, he said. Let’s do it and let’s stop spending money on incarcerating non-violent people because they are drug addicted. “It’s also a good example of why I think he’s got a shot”. But when they get out, thats when it gets tough.