Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg will represent prosecutors nationwide for a six-year term on the board of directors of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). Aronberg, who had made the opioid epidemic a focal point of his career, will serve as the only current prosecutor on the 20-member board.
As a member of the board, Aronberg will help lead a national training, membership and advocacy organization representing more than 40,000 justice and treatment professionals working in more than 3,000 treatment courts.
“State Attorney Aronberg’s dedication to evidence-based interventions to combat substance use in Florida is a model for the nation,” NADCP Chief Executive Officer Carson Fox said. “I have no doubt that with the addition of his leadership to the board, NADCP will continue to strengthen and expand the treatment court field.”
Aronberg said that he is looking forward to this new appointment.
“From drug court to veterans court, Palm Beach County’s alternative courts have always led the way to reduce incarceration and recidivism,” he said. “I am proud to have a leadership role in the top national organization for treatment courts, which improve public safety at reduced cost by moving people with substance use and mental health disorders out of the criminal justice system into lives of recovery and stability.”
Aronberg has fought the opioid crisis since he was an assistant attorney general in 2001, when he was the first to investigate Purdue Pharma for its marketing of OxyContin. Later, as the Florida Attorney General’s Special Prosecutor for Prescription Drug Trafficking, or “Drug Czar,” he helped shut down the state’s pill mills. In July 2016, Aronberg established the Sober Homes Task Force, which has largely cleaned up the drug treatment and sober home industries in Palm Beach County and led to a 40 percent decrease in opioid overdose deaths in 2018.
