Heroin problem: 'We're not going to arrest our way out of this'

The Dispatch / The Rock Island Argus [IL] ^ | January 18, 2015 | Rachel Warmke

[ConservingFreedom]

Local law enforcers, such as Rock Island County State's Attorney John McGehee and Quad City Metropolitan Enforcement Director Kevin Winslow say the solution to the heroin problem is to stop the dealers.

"We don't focus on addicts and users," Mr. Winslow said. "I think law enforcement as a whole wants to get the source of the problem."

In 2014, local officials filed their first case of drug-induced homicide against Jamil Steward, 26, of East Moline, who was accused of selling heroin that caused the overdose death of Michael Reid, 26, of Silvis.

Mr. Steward entered an Alford plea on Dec. 8 to felony unlawful delivery and is serving seven years in prison. In an Alford plea, the defendant doesn't plead guilty but admits there is enough evidence to convict him.

Similar cases have been brought to federal court, where the penalties are stiffer.

Prison not the answer

Not everyone thinks prison is the answer.

Former Davenport police officer Brian Gaughan was 20 when began his career in 1980. He said he became disenchanted with the War on Drugs while working as an undercover cop in Chicago.

He said he befriended a drug dealer to gather information against him and, at one point, was taken aside by the dealer's mother, who thanked him for being a positive influence on her son, who had gotten involved with the wrong crowd after his father died.

That conversation was life-altering, said Mr. Gaughan, who left police work for a career in firefighting. Now a speaker with the national nonprofit Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, he advocates for decriminalization and regulation of controlled substances in the United States.

"Arresting a dealer doesn't solve any problems at all," he said. "In fact, it exacerbates problems.”

Game of whack-a-mole

He believes the theory that "going after dealers will mean less drugs" is misguided, comparing it to a game of whack-a-mole -- "You arrest one guy and three more pop up.”

Mr. Gaughan said there's an endless supply of drug dealers to replace ones who are arrested, and that can lead to turf wars and gang violence.

He supports reform of the criminal justice system, saying more resources should be allocated for drug treatment and social support on the front end to reduce demand and curb drug-related criminal behavior.

“We spend an awful lot of money in jailing people. We don't spend nearly as much money treating them,” said Mary Engholm, executive director of the Rock Island County Council on Addictions.

Overcrowding and lack of local treatment providers has led to lengthy wait times for treatment and limited long-term case management, she said.

That's created a “different class of criminal,” including users -- some homeless and without proper help -- who commit petty crimes and cycle in and out of the courts like a "revolving door," Ms. Engholm said.

More people have been able to access treatment since the Affordable Care Act was passed, but RICCA's long-term residential facility remains filled to its 34-bed capacity, she said.

Naloxone for overdoses

In Iowa, activists are seeking to pass a Good Samaritan law similar to ones passed in Illinois and 19 other states that allow people to report an emergency overdose without fear of being arrested.

"It could save lives," said Kim Brown, of Davenport, co-founder of the QC Overdose Awareness Walk, an annual event that started last year. The bill would allow over-the-counter purchase of Naloxone, a drug carried by paramedics that can reverse opiate overdoses, she said.

According to the Trust for American Health, a national group concerned about a prescription drug “epidemic,” from 1999 through 2013, the number of drug overdose deaths quadrupled in Iowa and increased by 49 percent in Illinois.

Ms. Brown, whose 33-year-old son Andy died from an overdose in May 2011, believes those numbers could be reduced if Naloxone were more readily available.

She said her son was a fun-loving man who played football and loved his two sons. She doesn't know when his addiction began, but she speculated it may have been after he was prescribed opiates following a surgical procedure.

No one wants to be an addict

“Nobody's born saying they want to grow up to become an addict.” Ms. Brown said, adding that addicts often are “stigmatized and shamed” rather than treated. “We've got to find a better way.”

Mr. Gaughan points to places such as Portugal, where drug use was decriminalized in 2001, and Switzerland, which offers heroin addicts access to clinics with clean needles and pure heroin as part of drug treatment services, as examples to emulate.

“Putting someone in a cage doesn't solve the problem at all,” he said.

Mr. Winslow said he realizes "we're not going to arrest our way out of this."

He recommends a coordinated effort by local police, courts and treatment centers to identify and treat the source of addiction for users, while halting those who profit from heroin distribution.

[outpostinmass2]

“What do you think of the 100 patients who died due to sulfanilamide medication poising?”

I’m familiar with it and it was awful. I believe they paid out substantial monies in compensation. And there was already plenty of law on the books to deal with it.

---

Actually no: The Massengill Company paid a minimum fine under provisions of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, which prohibited labeling the preparation an “elixir” if it had no alcohol in it.

FDA Commissioner Walter Campbell, who was then pressing for better federal regulation of drugs, pointed out how the inadequacy of the law had contributed to the disaster. “It is unfortunate that under the terms of our present inadequate Federal law, the Food and Drug Administration is obliged to proceed against this product on a technical and trivial charge of misbranding. ...[The Elixir Sulfanilamide incident] emphasizes how essential it is to public welfare that the distribution of highly potent drugs should be controlled by an adequate Federal Food and Drug law. ... We should not lose sight of the fact that we had many deaths and cases of blindness resulting from the use of another new drug, dinitrophenol, which was recklessly placed upon the market some years ago. Deaths and blindness from this [drug] are continuing today. We also should remember the deaths resulting from damage to the liver that have occurred from cinchophen poisoning, a drug often recommended in such painful conditions as rheumatism. We also have unfortunate poisoning, acute and chronic, resulting from thyroid and radium preparations improperly administered to the public.

“These unfortunate occurrences may be expected to continue because new and relatively untried drug preparations are being manufactured almost daily at the whim of the individual manufacturer, and the damage to public health cannot accurately be estimated. The only remedy for such a situation is the enactment by Congress of an adequate and comprehensive national Food and Drugs Act which will require that all medicines placed upon the market shall be safe to use under the directions for use. ...”

[DiogenesLamp]

If its a “war” then why isn’t the 101st Airborne conducting operations domestically?

What, Mr. Constitutional scholar does not know the answer to this question?

The US Military is certainly involved in interdiction efforts along and outside our borders though.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And this buttresses your purported point just how?

Whatever the INTENTIONS, I have to respect the fact that through the early 1900s nothing was banned at the pharmacy. Yet what were the moralists of the day screaming about, if they had to blame some inanimate substance? Alcohol.

We have tried to crowd the proverbial elephant out of our living room with some woeful cotton candy. It won’t work, the elephant even likes it.

[Lurker]

On what date did Congress pass the Declaration of War?

[HiTech RedNeck]

So, it’s a war. The “military industrial complex” to borrow a term metaphorically, is profiting. Why should they want the war to win and cease?

[samtheman]

This is an extremely difficult issue. There is no doubt that if the social environment was entirely free of heroin, then there would be, and could be, no heroin use.

But as Diogenes said, we have to live in the real world where “entirely free of” is not possible. As he points out, it’s also unrealistic to say, “since there is some heroin, it means all efforts to control heroin are a failure”. Both sides of the all-or-nothing proposition are utopian and unrealistic.

To me there are two important questions, the first being, how do we deal with the unintended consequences of the drug war — such as the proliferation of SWAT insanity and the criminal seizures of property that is owned by people who have not been convicted of any crime.

The second being a more general, what is to be done?

I would be in favor of severely increasing the penalties for drug sales, as long as those increases went hand in hand with the institution of severe penalties for prosecutorial and police misconduct, beginning with what I believe would be the biggest stick you would ever need: divestment of pension rights.

If you are convicted of misconduct, you lose your job and your pension. Every penny of it.

[Lurker]

Caveat emptor and all that.

So how do you square this with Article 1, Section 8 and the 10th Amendment?

[ConservingFreedom]

Okay, Mom Against Guns. But why are you posting on a conservative site?

[SgtHooper]

Happy for you, and God Bless You, Diana!!

[DiogenesLamp]

And this buttresses your purported point just how?

What point do you think is being made by the posting of this picture?

The point I am trying to make, it makes very well. Libertarians are child like crybabies who think they can do whatever they like and scream about it like little spoiled brats, when they don't get their way.

Whatever the INTENTIONS, I have to respect the fact that through the early 1900s nothing was banned at the pharmacy. Yet what were the moralists of the day screaming about, if they had to blame some inanimate substance? Alcohol.

Nothing was banned at the pharmacy because at this point in history people were just learning about the connections between powerful narcotics and addiction. They had little to no experience with such things prior to the civil war. (Which is why I get so disgusted when "Wrecking Freedom" keeps saying there were no laws for the first 150 years of this country's existence. It's because such a statement DELIBERATELY misstates the true situation.)

It was the heavy usage of opiates and cocainoids in the aftermath of the civil war which "primed the pump" of widespread drug addiction in this country. Prior to that, the vast majority had never heard of the stuff, and little was available anyway.

But let's explore your point for a moment. (That nothing was banned at the pharmacy.)

In 1886, John Pemberton (a Pharmacist)developed Coca-Cola. He got addicted to Morphine as a result of his injuries in the Civil war, and wanted to find a substitute for the dangerous opiate. Each glass contained about nine milligrams of cocaine.

Now answer me this honestly. Do you honestly think there would be no problems caused by pharmacies selling nine milligram glasses of Coca-Cola to the public?

[ConservingFreedom]

Y'know, like Roe v Wade's "emanations" from "penumbras" or Wickard v Filburn's "substantial effects" - a new frontier in the 'living Constitution'.

Drugs [...] aren't made up phantoms

Your "umbrella" of the Defense Clause is a made up phantom.

[DiogenesLamp]

On what date did Congress pass the Declaration of War?

Same day they declared War on Vietnam.

[ConservingFreedom]

Do you mean to say the power to declare War?

Sure. Ever hear of the "War" on drugs?

Also the War on Poverty = poverty certainly has a body count, so it also falls under your "umbrella" of the Defense Clause.

[DiogenesLamp]

So, it’s a war. The “military industrial complex” to borrow a term metaphorically, is profiting. Why should they want the war to win and cease?

I'm sure that there are those who don't want it to stop. Make no mistake, there are people who profit from this, on both sides of the war.

[ConservingFreedom]

Article 2 section 8, Article 1 section 8 whatever it takes.

Typo flames - devastating.

[RFEngineer]

I’ve talked with addicts - very frankly. I’ve talked with folks like you, who have had addicts in their immediate family.

Rehab doesn’t have a high success rate - for a variety of reasons. I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I seriously doubt it is making heroin more available and more widely used through less enforcement/decriminalization. I don’t have to tell you what it does to people.

It’s easier (and there are fewer repercussions) for a kid in high school to get heroin than a 6-pack of beer.

I think we need to decriminalize beer before we decriminalize heroin.

[ConservingFreedom]

So citing authorities is argument by authority and is bad, but the flip side of that coin is good. Got it.

[ConservingFreedom]

It’s easier (and there are fewer repercussions) for a kid in high school to get heroin than a 6-pack of beer.

Of course, because dealers don't card - only in a legal regulated market can age restrictions be enforced.

[outpostinmass2]

Caveat emptor and all that.

So how do you square this with Article 1, Section 8 and the 10th Amendment?

---

From what I read the FDA looks square to me.

[Lurker]

As long as its genuinely interstate commerce it is.

I highly recommend bot the Federalist Papers as well as the Anti-Federalist arguments. It’s fascinating reading and you can plainly see how far from Constitutional governance we are.

L