Fatherlessness too high a price for non-violent drug charge

 In the last 6 months, the number of non-violent drug offenders in Mississippi prisons has increased a staggering 27%, to over 4,000 people. Mississippi already imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any other state in the country. Now, Mississippi taxpayers are shelling out over $70 million per year to incarcerate non-violent drug offenders in prison. Even more devastating is the impact on Mississippi’s children as their families are unnecessarily broken.

Our State Auditor recently released a report highlighting the high costs of fatherlessness. Many fathers in Mississippi are absent from their childrens’ lives because they are sitting in prison while their children grow up without them. If we are concerned, as we should be, about fatherlessness, we must address the ways our policies cause it and whether continuing them is worth generational damage.

Several years ago, I saw just how easily a non-violent drug charge creates a fatherless child. It was just before Thanksgiving, and I was at the courthouse as a character witness for a woman I knew. She was being sentenced for behavior stemming from a drug addiction. Arriving at the courthouse just before 9 a.m. with other family members and friends, we watched the sentencing of other people as we waited for her case to be called.

One of those cases is etched in my memory. A man was led into the courtroom, his wrists and ankles shackled like every defendant. He scanned the benches of family and friends, locked eyes with a very pregnant woman, and mouthed, “I love you,” as he shuffled to the defendant’s table and took a seat facing the judge. The prosecuting attorney explained the non-violent drug charge the defendant faced, highlighting a previous drug charge on his record. The defense attorney acknowledged the previous charge, explaining the addiction the defendant was struggling with at the time. The defense attorney also highlighted how his client had maintained a clean record in the 10 years since the incident.

A pregnant woman, who was sitting directly across from me, was the last person to address the judge. She read her appeal from loose papers clutched in shaking hands. Through tears and occasional sobs, she begged the judge to let her fiancé come home. She was due with their first child in less than a week. She knew the devastating impact of incarceration on children because her own father was incarcerated while she was growing up, she explained.

“Please, let him come home,” she pleaded. “He’s a good man. We need him.”

She walked back to her seat as she wiped her tears. The judge was quiet while she spoke but immediately handed down the sentence. Sixteen years in prison. His gavel rang through the courtroom accompanied by a sound I’ll never forget. The defendant’s body went rigid, his head tipped back, and an anguished cry filled the courtroom, intermingled with the woman’s sobs.

The man was immediately led away, looking over his shoulder as he reiterated how much he loved her through his own tears. Next case.

A family had just been torn to pieces in less than 15 minutes. How can a society that values fathers in the home be so willing to remove them for minor infractions?

As I got in my car after court that morning, I glanced a few parking places over and saw the expectant mother easing into hers. She arrived hoping her child would grow up with a father — something she never had. She left preparing to raise a child who is now a statistic in a report published by the Mississippi State Auditor’s office.

Incarceration isn’t always avoidable. But the impact of incarceration is seismic, like tipping over the first domino in a domino run. We must grapple with the collateral damage it causes. Is it really the right tool for a non-violent drug charge? Is the generational damage to that family and child worth it?

There are thousands of Mississippi families like them. If the consequence of enforcing a policy is more harmful than the infraction, we must look for better solutions. A first step would be handling drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue.

CHRISTINA DENT is the founder & president of End It For Good, a Mississippi-based nonprofit. She lives with her husband and sons in Ridgeland.

Does being “tough on crime” lead to a brighter future?

For those of us who live in Mississippi, where End It For Good is based, several things are happening right now.

First, we now rank #1 in the country for the imprisonment of our citizens per capita. That’s staggering.

Second, the number of people imprisoned here on a non-violent drug charge has risen 20% in the last 6 months.

Third, as violent crime rises across the country, there’s a movement to revive “tough on crime” policies from previous decades.

Is that the right move?

I grew up on the west side of Jackson, Mississippi. Gunshots and police sirens were part of the evening sounds I listened to in bed almost every night.

When I was 9 years old, our neighbors were followed home and robbed at gunpoint in their driveway while I was sitting in our living room with the windows open less than 50 feet away. That triggered several years of severe anxiety for me. I was terrified to leave my house in case we were followed home. But I was terrified to be home because the robbery happened right there. I deeply understand the desire to be safe.

And yet.

Being “tough on crime” is no guarantee of increased safety.

Earlier this week one of the founders of the band Alabama was arrested for possession of marijuana. In the state of Alabama where he was caught, that’s a crime. We could say arresting Teddy Gentry is being tough on crime. But did it make anyone safer? Worse yet, it diverted law enforcement resources in a part of the country where 57% of violent crimes never have an arrest made.

Violent crime is a problem. A troublingly low arrest rate for violent crime is a problem. The diversion of resources to low-level offenses like marijuana possession is a problem.

Could we carefully and thoughtfully free up resources by shifting away from using the criminal justice system to police something like marijuana possession? Could wecarefully and thoughtfully use research to address violent crime?

If we let fear drive us, we’ll sweep millions of people into the criminal justice system for low-level charges like Teddy Gentry’s, and we’ll still have hundreds of thousands of victims of violent crime living without justice. 

Fear shuts down logic, critical thinking, and complex problem solving. We need all three of those to actually improve public safety.

But it’s not all heavy.

Two months ago I introduced you to Christi Berrong-Barber, our Volunteer of the Month. Through her work providing Narcan and health education with the Molly Angel Project, she’s had some other opportunities come along. She sent me this text:

“I was thinking about y’all this morning.  A family called for the Molly Angel Project, kid on drug court, they went on vacation and found fentanyl in his bags. So I went to court with them today and we got the judge to send him to rehab instead of jail.  He’s being transported today for a 90 day program.  And the judge asked me if he can share my card with other judges as a resource to figure out how to help more kids who are addicted. It was a small win, but still a win!”

Christi’s own son is serving time in a Mississippi prison for behavior stemming from his heroin addiction. She continued:

“I remember sitting in those court rooms terrified with no idea what to expect or say and I couldn’t let that family do it by themselves. Not when the mom was trying so hard to figure out how to help her son…I came home and almost cried I was so happy for them!” 

One person made herself available as an advocate. One judge was willing to try a different approach. One family was spared the devastation of incarceration.

It may seem like a small win, but it has the potential to impact generations in that family.

End It For Good’s work almost solely revolves around stopping harm before it happens. That’s what Christi was able to be part of, and now one more person got the opportunity to heal instead.

What role can you play in hope and healing? It may not be going to court, but all around us are hurting families who need support. Reach out to one today. Let them know you’rethinking of them and you support them in the valley they’re walking through.

Every one of us needs someone in our corner. Every one of us can be that someone.

Changing laws isn’t the only way to effect change!

Last week I spoke at the Mississippi Center for Re-Entry’s conference. The topic came up of whether or not criminal justice reform would continue to be on legislative agendas across the country. One attendee said lawmakers might be getting tired of addressing it year after year. Another one followed with, “If they’re tired of talking about it, imagine how the families feel.”

Certainly it’s not possible or good for public safety to shield every family from incarceration. But if we have laws resulting in unnecessary – and unhelpful – incarceration, then changing those laws is crucial…even if it takes longer than we’d like.

But changing laws isn’t the only way to effect change. Two weeks ago the End It For Good team went to Nashville for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals conference.

Our own Angela Mallette was part of a main stage panel on how drug courts can operate in ways that reduce harm rather than increase it. That doesn’t require changed laws, just changed perspectives that result in better practices. What an honor for Angela’s expertise to be recognized on the national stage at a conference with 8,000 attendees! (pictures below)

Changing policies can reduce harm. Changing practices can reduce harm. But that may feel removed from your sphere of influence. What can you do to advance health-centered approaches to drugs and be a voice for people impacted by punitive drug laws?

We’ll be in Tupelo, MS, in just 8 days, and our 50th podcast episode just premiered. Spread the word! Or maybe you know somewhere we should come and speak, either in-person or virtually? Hit reply and let me know. Together we can invite even more people on the journey to consider health-centered approaches to drugs.

Honor our lost loved ones by ending the war on drugs

By Lee Clark Malouf

My son, Robert, passed away in January 2017. He died of an accidental overdose of opioids. For me and my family, the last five years have been filled with minutes, hours and days of tremendous sadness with grief gripping every ounce of us. How can we use our horrific loss and heartbreak? We can wield it in anger and bitterness, or we can use it to support life-giving solutions.

Recently I recalled some of my thoughts from the night of Robert’s death. I thought of all the moms who lost their sons and daughters in war. Someone had appeared at their doorstep with the horrific life-altering news that their precious child had died in battle. The one held most dear to their heart had passed from this world. I remember thinking they died for a cause.

Our present-day battle is the war on drugs, where we are using our criminal justice system to handle a health crisis. For the loved ones we lost in its collateral damage, bringing an end to it is perhaps the best way to honor them.

I can’t help but wonder what our lost loved ones would say if they were able to speak. Would their message be for more jailing to heal the problem? Would their message be for long sentences? Or would it be listening to the stories of people using drugs and in addiction?

Would our loved ones want more and more punitive reactions? Or would they want us to look for the best way to keep people in the struggle alive and functioning?

What would those who have died want for other people using drugs who are still here?

Perhaps they would challenge us to sit in on an open AA meeting or any support group, coming face to face with people who are in the struggle. Those who are walking the walk. The people in these groups are real people exposing their thoughts and fears. Each one can share and is understood. Being able to totally relate gives strength and courage.

I pray those we have lost have not died in vain. And their legacy collectively can be for more understanding and compassion and less shame. Maybe they will be known in years to come as trailblazers in the fight against the war on drugs. And their lives will be viewed as a sacrifice to upend the old way of using the criminal justice system to tackle our drug problems.

Maybe this is part of the battle. Maybe our loved ones have died for a cause. I feel that would be the most amazing blessing that could develop from this tragedy that is being played out before us.

Will apathy progress us? Will turning a blind eye advance solutions? Will the same old path of punishment lead us to a better place? It hasn’t yet.

How can we fight for the betterment of those still on earth, those still enveloped in the struggle? I think I know what our loved ones would say. Let’s give them a voice.

LEE MALOUF is an advocate for health-centered responses to drug use. She can be reached at missyazoo@aol.com.

A Reply: ‘Don’t Fall for “Conservative” Pitch to Legalize Hard Drugs’

“Do you think drugs should be legalized?” The first time I was asked this question, I got so angry I left the room. My response was typical of my demographic as a politically conservative Christian woman. Have you lost your mind, not to mention your faith? Drugs can cause catastrophic destruction of lives and families. So why on earth would we legalize them?

Then I became a foster mom, and I began to see how harm from drugs falls into two categories. One category is the harm a substance can do to the person taking it, but the other is harm from the drug policy of prohibition. The more I learned, the more I became convinced that drug prohibition is responsible for much of the harm we blame on drugs.

The level of preventable harm is so high that I switched careers and started End It For Good, a nonprofit to invite people to consider how legal regulation of drugs could reduce harm to children, families, and communities. Wesley J. Smith wrote an opinion piece in The Epoch Times last week disagreeing with our work. He brings up many valid points. Legalization certainly has downsides, but so does prohibition. We must decide which imperfect solution produces better outcomes.

Toward the end of his piece, he summarizes what he believes will happen if drugs are legalized: “The inevitable outcome would be more addiction, increased deaths, and destroyed families.” I want to take these four outcomes—crime, death, addiction, and destroyed families—and show why prohibition has increased each outcome and how legalization offers a path toward life, health, and peace. Perhaps after reading, you’ll resonate with a state trooper who attended one of End It For Good’s events earlier this year and afterward said to me, “I’ve never thought about it like this before.”

Let’s zoom out and look at the big picture of drugs so we can trace the root causes of harm. When a popular substance is criminalized, supply doesn’t disappear since demand is still there. Instead, it shifts underground. The only people able to supply consumers with the drugs they want are people willing to break the law. Legal, law-abiding businesses close their doors while gangs, cartels, and terrorist organizations rake in hundreds of billions of dollars every year selling illegal drugs. The more brutal they are, the more territory they can control, increasing their revenue as a result. Banning popular drugs financially rewards crime and violence across the globe, destabilizing whole countries, and exacerbating the crisis at our southern border. Drug prohibition doesn’t fight crime; it makes it extremely profitable, undermining law and order.

What about Smith’s concern that legalization would bring more death? When a drug is legal and regulated, the consumer knows exactly what’s in the drug they’re buying and its potency. But when a drug is prohibited, all quality control is lost. Consumers are buying a baggie of powder or a random pill without knowing what’s in it or how strong it may be. In this free-for-all, the synthetic opioid fentanyl is often included because of its high potency. The biggest punch in the smallest package is a predictable and profitable business decision to make drugs easier to smuggle.

It’s important to note that fentanyl is not inherently deadly. My son cut his finger badly three years ago and had to get stitches. As we waited for the doctor, a nurse cheerfully announced she was giving my son fentanyl to help with the pain. Later she came in and gave him some more. He was 4 years old. Regulated fentanyl, dosed appropriately, doesn’t kill anyone. And yet thousands of people die from fentanyl overdoses yearly because the drugs they’re buying on the street are concoctions with absolutely no quality control. Had they known the potency, they could use an appropriate, nonlethal dose, and tens of thousands of consumers would still be alive. Instead, prohibition is making drug use far more deadly. Only legalization offers life-saving quality control.

I share Smith’s concerns over addiction and family breakdown as I share his other concerns. As foster parents, we opened our home to children whose parents were struggling with drug addiction. It can be devastating, but incarceration doesn’t solve addiction. It doesn’t stop people from accessing and consuming drugs since they’re readily available in jails and prisons across the country. Incarceration does, however, disconnect people from their job, housing, family, and community. When people get out of jail, they often have a criminal record for the rest of their lives. Regaining employment becomes nearly impossible. Without a decent job, they can’t afford housing or provide for themselves.

The incarceration cycle is incredibly traumatic for a person as well as his or her family. A host of studies demonstrate how the more trauma someone experiences, the more likely he or she is to use drugs. Learning this blew my mind and changed my perspective. I always thought people addicted to drugs were bad people intent on doing bad things. But research says it’s far more likely they’re people who have been deeply hurt and are trying to cope. That’s not to excuse harmful behavior stemming from their drug use, and it’s not to condone their coping mechanism. It’s simply to say that if we want people to stop using drugs, adding more trauma to their life is like throwing gasoline on a fire.

If we truly want to decrease addiction, we must address the human problems causing it. We’ve focused for decades on drugs. It’s time to focus on why people use them.

Drug prohibition can’t deliver the health, safety, and control we want. It delivers the opposite, making crime, death, addiction, and family destruction far worse. Banning popular drugs can have some positive outcomes, but those benefits are eclipsed many times over by the suffering and death that come along with it. We live in a broken world with hurting people and potentially harmful substances. There are no perfect solutions, but there are realistic options that significantly reduce harm. I believe legal regulation of drugs is one of those, producing outcomes that better align with my values as a conservative and a pro-life Christian.

By Christina Dent

Christina Dent is a writer, speaker, and the founder & president of End It For Good, a nonprofit inviting people to support approaches to drugs that prioritize life and the opportunity to thrive.

There is a growing chorus of voices!

Last week Brett Montague, our CEO, and I spent several days in Washington, D.C. Wemet with lawmakers on behalf of End It For Good as well as the Cannabis Freedom Alliance, a national coalition in which EFG is a participating member. The first thing one Republican Congressman said when I explained EFG’s mission was, “Well, we don’t need to be locking people up for weed. It’s violent offenders who should be in there.”

We’ve found more and more people who feel this way. Whether or not they proactively want people using marijuana, polling shows even among Republicans, 85% believe marijuana should be legal for either medical, recreational, or both uses. Thirty-seven states now have marijuana legalized either for medical or recreational purposes, yet it remains criminalized at the federal level.

One of the members of the Cannabis Freedom Alliance is a former sheriff from the midwest who worked narcotics for a number of years. Another is a former undercover narcotics agent. Both are advocating for ending marijuana prohibition and freeing law enforcement to focus more on policing violent crime and improving public safety. Something the Congressman would like to see too.

The person who touched me the most on this trip, though, is a veteran who is able to control the mental health challenges from his service in the Middle East through using medical marijuana. It has allowed him to get off 16 different medications. He’s a husband, a new father, runs two businesses and does advocacy work for veterans like himself. His story is just another reminder of all the people we harm through prohibition.

There is a growing chorus of voices, passionate for a variety of different reasons, supporting reform. Will you join us?

I Give People Fentanyl. We’ve Misdiagnosed the Overdose Crisis.

By Dr. Carr McClain

I give patients the synthetic opioid fentanyl almost every day in my surgical practice. It’s safer and has fewer side effects than Morphine, yet it’s now by far the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in America.  Fentanyl itself is not the problem. Legal, regulated, properly administered fentanyl kills no one.  Unlabeled, black-market fentanyl, which only exists because of the prohibition of other popular drugs, now kills thousands every year.   If we want consumers to stop buying unregulated narcotics and dying, we should consider allowing adults to have broader legal access to narcotics. It could save tens of thousands of lives every year.

Fentanyl is not a new drug.  It has been used in medical settings for decades. Most Americans who ingest it do so safely, under a doctor’s care.  They do not become addicted, overdose, or die. Today’s fentanyl crisis started because of a principle called The Iron Law of Prohibition.  This holds that when a class of drug is made illegal, the prevailing form will become more concentrated and potent, making it easier to hide and transport while avoiding detection.  We’ve seen this before:  Alcohol prohibition caused hard liquor consumption to explode in a country that previously drank mostly beer.

Over the last 20 years, we have witnessed this phenomenon with narcotics. The over-prescription of legal opioid painkillers was a real problem. But it was met with the ineffective drug policies of the last 50 years: interventions to control the availability of prescriptions, efforts to cut many patients off entirely, then arrests and imprisonment for the crime of being addicted to a socially unacceptable substance. The result? People who previously got properly labeled Percocet and Lortab from a doctor were drawn to obtain unlabeled narcotics from street vendors. At the same time, fentanyl became the perfect additive to increase potency, thereby decreasing the packaging size of other illegal narcotics.  Fentanyl is inexpensive to manufacture, and as a synthetic opioid, it does not require the cultivation and harvesting of poppies – the source of morphine and heroin.  The decrease in access to legal, regulated narcotics has pushed more consumers to buy from the underground market, where the Iron Law of Prohibition has brought us unregulated fentanyl.

The Centers For Disease Control estimates that from November 2020 to November 2021, about 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses.  Of those deaths, 70,000 were from synthetic opioids – fentanyl. (1)   Almost none of these deaths are suicides. They are accidents. Those seeking narcotics are not seeking fentanyl, and the seller on the street likely does not even know exactly what they are selling.  People obtain what they think is heroin, and instead, they ingest something 25-50 times stronger than heroin.  Their breathing is depressed, and they die. Imagine a diabetic buying unlabeled insulin on the street and inadvertently taking 50 times his needed dose. He would die.

Mississippi will soon have legal medical cannabis, supported by most voters. Cannabis legalization is finally well-accepted, but mention legalizing other drugs, and the tone changes. “Hard drugs? No way. They are addictive and deadly.”

Our approach to drugs is backward. The more harmful or addictive a drug can be, the more important it is to regain regulatory control by legalizing it. No one is dying from cannabis overdoses. They are dying from overdoses of drugs like heroin, cocaine, and now fentanyl.

 Each drug overdose death is a tragedy that should stir our emotions.  These are preventable deaths. We can simultaneously grieve our lost brothers and sisters but be clinical about the circumstances of their deaths and the options for decreasing those deaths.  Legal, regulated, and properly administered narcotics would save the lives of thousands of people and open a much wider door to treatment for those who develop an addiction.  Will many of them remain dependent on opioids?  Perhaps. But isn’t the goal to reduce harm?   Allowing adults to have supervised access to legal, regulated narcotics will keep them from resorting to the deadly unlabeled products sold by criminals. If our goal is truly saving lives and minimizing harm, we must consider policies that actually do that.

 

1.    www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm

Dr. Carr McClain is a cardiovascular surgeon at Forrest General Hospital.  He lives with his family in Hattiesburg, MS. 

Is stigmatizing drug use a helpful prevention tool?

I got a lot of feedback on last month’s newsletter commentary on whether stigmatizing drug use is a helpful prevention tool or a harmful barrier to getting help. It was fascinating! A lot of those thoughts are summarized in the quote above, but here are a few more from readers:

“With those making choices who are under 21 and with the deadly drugs out there its a more difficult issue. Pluses and Minuses.”

“I’m not sure I buy an argument that stigma/shame should be avoided.  Sure, wecan overdo it.  But we nudge people toward help with a variety of carrots and sticks.”

“I think shame does harm more than good. It is judgement, which we cannot make. We aren’t God and we don’t know all the circumstances. Not helpful.”

“Stigma is not good…the argument made that making it criminal will help someone seek help is false.” 

Maybe what we’re looking for is a middle ground where the use of harder drugs isn’t normalized but it’s also not criminalized. It’s worth finding this middle space instead of letting celebration or incarceration win the day.

If you hit reply, it comes straight to me. I always appreciate thoughts, pushback, and stories. 

Speaking of stories, our Community Discussion in Bay St. Louis was filled with people sharing incredible stories. From a woman who had only been sober for a few weeks after years of addiction to a state trooper hearing the ideas we present for the first time, it was full of honesty, curiosity, and respectful dialogue.

We’re coming to Jackson, MS, next month!

What if we opted for honest and open conversations?

A couple of weeks ago I was on an introductory call with the leader of a faith-based organization that works on other justice issues. As we talked he made the comment that stigmatizing drugs by using the criminal justice system was valuable because it shows people drug use is not acceptable. From his perspective, the criminal label is a helpful prevention tool.

I’ve heard many people express the same worry over moving away from a criminal justice response to drugs: “What kind of message are we sending? Won’t people think we’re encouraging drug use?”

But there’s a flip side to stigma. It makes it really, really hard to reach out for help. It’s impossible to label someone a criminal on the front end and not have fallout on the back end.

The dissonance happening right now is that we’re trying to simultaneously shame people away from drug use by using stigma, but then break down stigma if they develop an addiction. This isn’t how human nature works. We don’t get to hand out shame and then take it back whenever we want to.

If we want more people struggling with addiction to take the path of recovery, we can’t continue to wield shame and stigma. That doesn’t mean we give up on helping people make healthy choices. Instead, what if we opted for honest and open education so people could make well-informed decisions about substance use and access appropriate help if they need it?

A lesson on harm reduction…

A couple weeks ago a mutual friend connected me with Jim, a father who lost his only child to an opioid overdose at 19 years old. Shortly after Zach passed away, Jim went to a conference and heard about the concept of harm reduction for drugs for the first time. He asked me through tears, “Why has no one ever told me about this?”

Harm reduction focuses on just that – reducing harm around drug use and addiction.

Jim took the opposite approach with Zach, even joining a support group for parents who were committed to making life harder for their addicted children until they were completely abstinent from drugs.

Now Jim has a different perspective. He wishes he could go back and focus on keeping Zach alive. Death permanently closes the door to a thriving life. Jim wishes he could celebrate each small step Zach took towards a healthier life rather than blaming him for not reaching the high bar of permanent abstinence overnight.

Harm reduction isn’t new. We already use the concept for other risky behaviors like driving (seat belts), tobacco use (voluntary cessation aids), swimming (lifeguards), etc.

Harm reduction acknowledges that some behaviors are inherently risky, and it focuses on saving lives and preventing harm to people engaging in them. Whether or not wewant people addicted to drugs, it’s a fact that millions of people are. Whether or not wewant them to be abstinent overnight, it’s a fact that most people can’t make that leap. But we may be able to keep them alive long enough to get there one day – one small step at a time.

Jim heard about harm reduction for drug use after it was too late for Zach. But it’s not too late for millions of people still struggling today.

Join us for an End It For Good event in 2022, where we explore the concept of harm reduction alongside other solutions to the addiction crisis.