“As someone who has been treating these folks for a very long time, one of the biggest challenges is, once they build a life of recovery, getting back into the workplace, so they can find that meaning and that reason to get up every morning and have some structure to their day and a purpose,” Berry, an addiction psychiatrist, said. “I find that people have a much better chance at maintaining their sobriety when they have that.”

Justice announced his “Jim’s Dream” (Jobs In Making You Succeed) proposal to address West Virginia’s drug epidemic during Wednesday’s State of the State address. He expanded on his comments during a news conference Thursday at the Capitol.

Justice’s plan includes putting $5 million for childhood drug prevention education, $10 million for a jobs training program and another $10 million to the Department of Health and Human Resources for drug treatment.

People who complete a jobs training program would be able to have misdemeanors expunged from their records, Justice said. During a follow-up interview after the news conference, the governor said he also would be open to expunging nonviolent felonies.

Justice said he wants to offer people treatment for free. He also wants the jobs training program to accept people who don’t have addictions, as long as they can pass a drug test.

“Here’s the problem: Today in West Virginia, we don’t have a qualified workforce that can pass drug tests in lots of ways,” Justice said. “So, therefore, people come to my office and say ‘West Virginia, we love the people; we love everything that’s gong on there. We love what’s going on in education, but we can’t really come there, because we really don’t think there’s any way that you’re going to have a qualified workforce.’ ”

A Justice spokesman said in an email that the details for the program are still being worked out and will be released once they are final.

“All I’m trying to do is put together the format of a 100,000-foot fly-by, and then we’ll have to make adjustments and everything else as we go,” Justice said Thursday. “But I am confident in the format.”

Justice said the state’s schools have prevention efforts but none at a “super early age,” and that’s what he wants to put aside money to do.

Berry said the prevention aspect of Justice’s plan must include screening children who might be at risk of developing an addiction and getting them the behavioral health services they need to stay in school.

“Those would be kids who have various traumas in their life, what we know as adverse childhood experiences, who might be at risk for having some behavioral problems,” Berry said. “[Kids] whose parents themselves have addiction problems.”

There should also be evidence-based programs to help kids understand the nature of addiction and community, as well as school-based programs that help kids build connections with healthy adults who can be role models, he said.

Berry said removing any barrier to treatment, including cost, is a good idea.

“Most of the people, fortunately, do have Medicaid, which, at least in West Virginia, has been a tremendous help getting people the treatment that they need,” he said. “But if they need services beyond the traditional Medicaid, whatever can be done to make sure they get help, if they don’t have either Medicaid or insurance, then whatever is necessary to keep people in treatment.”

Berry said $10 million to the DHHR for drug treatment is “a good start.”

“I’m not an economist or public health economist,” Berry said. “However, knowing the extent of the problem that we have, I think it’s probably going to require much more over the long term.”

Expunging the records of people who complete job training is a “wonderful plan,” he said.

“I absolutely applaud that,” Berry said. “I think that’s a fantastic idea.”

He added that the people he treats are often regretful of what they did while they were addicted and they wish they could turn back the clock and change it.

“Unfortunately, they can’t,” Berry said. “And when you have a criminal record, that’s going to stay with you for life. That’s going to affect your ability to get employment and other resources. It’s just going to make a challenge for living a healthy life that these folks need to live.”

Berry added, “Overall I’m very impressed with the strategy coming out currently that’s emphasizing prevention and treatment and recognizing that addiction is a disease that is treatable, and we need to do what we can to get people into treatment and to keep them in recovery.”