Category: News & Blogs

I was standing next to the water fountain at the Mississippi Agricultural Museum when the person I was chatting with mentioned an article they just read. In the article, babies who were born dependent on opioids because of their mother’s opioid use were being treated in an entirely new way. Instead of being separated from their mothers and put in a bright, loud NICU before being whisked into foster care, they were kept with their moms in private, low-stimulation hospital rooms. Moms were taught how to swaddle and soothe their babies and encouraged to practice skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding. Giving the baby opioids to help them through withdrawal was a last resort. Mom was the primary medicine. The results were striking. Babies were getting through opioid withdrawals faster, using less opioids post-birth, and leaving the hospital days earlier.

This conversation was in 2015, but I remember it so clearly because my heart started pumping faster, my blood pressure shot through the roof, and I was overcome with anger. Intense emotional experiences tend to imprint themselves in our memory. My response in the conversation was swift and strong. That article couldn’t possibly be true, I retorted. Right then my family was fostering a baby who’d been removed from his mom’s custody because she was using drugs while she was pregnant. Even though I had no data to support my anger, the results in the article called into question whether our involvement was truly in the best interest of that precious baby’s life and health. That was too hard to consider when our family was deeply invested. I wasn’t getting up at all hours of the night to feed a newborn for nothing! I guess it’s human nature that when we hear an idea that conflicts with something we’re invested in, our knee-jerk reaction is to shut it down.

But I continued to hear about this bonding approach to opioid-dependent newborns, and last week the National Institutes of Health released a report on a study of 1305 infants across 26 US hospitals. The “Eat, Sleep, Console” (ESC) method, very similar to what I heard about in 2015, was studied alongside the Finnegan Neonatal Abstinence Scoring Tool (FNAST) that has been used for 50 years. The results echo what I heard 8 years ago. Newborns in this study who received the ESC approach to their opioid dependance were ready to be discharged from the hospital 6 days earlier than babies whose care was determined using FNAST. The ESC babies were also 63% less likely to receive opioids as part of their post-birth care. For a lot of these babies, what they needed most was mom.

On the one hand, we have a promising new approach to opioid-dependent newborns. On the other, some jurisdictions across the country arrest women who use drugs while pregnant. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to people who advocate a punitive approach and assume they truly believe scaring mothers will help babies. But is prosecution or prenatal care the best way to protect the life and health of unborn children whose mothers are struggling with addiction? Responses that feel good and responses that do good aren’t the same thing.

If a woman is afraid that a doctor’s visit will land her in prison, that momma won’t go anywhere near a doctor for as long as possible. Even worse, it seems that the impact these prosecutions are most likely to have on unborn children is incentivizing women struggling with addiction to have an abortion. If they give birth, they could end up in prison. If they have an abortion, they won’t. What a tragedy.

It’s hard to rethink something we’re deeply invested in. It took time for me to get over my initial anger at what felt like a threat to my role and instead embrace curiosity for the best path to healing for vulnerable babies. Change is hard, but if we want addicted moms to make healthier choices early in their pregnancies, we have to broaden the path to help not handcuffs. And if we want to give babies born dependent on opioids the best chance to recover quickly and suffer less, mom might be the best medicine out there.

Recently, I’ve heard political rhetoric that says we can lay blame for the fentanyl crisis on Mexico and the cartels — AND we should take direct military action against them.

If you’re interested in learning more about these talking points, Politico published an article highlighting the issue. You can read it here.

My thoughts are…

No, don’t bomb Mexico.

Here’s the thing: Humans like making money. When we forced the market for so many drugs underground through prohibition, we basically took a massive pile of consumer cash away from legal businesses and put it in a big pile. Only people who break the law can get it, and the more ruthless they are, the more cash they can get.

We’ve been wringing our hands and raging against the people who looked at that pile of cash and said, “I’d like some of that.”

Drug prohibition doesn’t fight crime … it creates a huge cash incentive to engage in it. Cartels aren’t the core problem and going to war with them will solve absolutely nothing. We’re at war with our own laws. Until we change them, fentanyl and the overdose crisis are here to stay.

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, even people who disagree with me, but it fails logic, experience, evidence and common sense to think that somehow launching a full-scale war with cartels is going to beat the laws of supply and demand once and for all.

Fentanyl is in the street drug supply because, as a country, we refuse to allow adults to make a broader range of choices about their drug use.

The cartels are simply responding to the financial incentives the law has put in front of them. If we want to show how serious we are about fighting fentanyl, we have to look inward at our laws, not outward at the people taking predictable advantage of the incentives the laws set up.

That’s why I’m so passionate about the work End It For Good does. We want to show people that if we change our laws and bring drug markets and consumption back into the rule of law rather than the free-for-all of prohibition, crime — as well as overdoses — could be significantly reduced.

Two weeks ago I got a call from Patrick (name changed to protect his privacy), a young man I interviewed almost 3 years ago for my book. He’s been in a Mississippi prison for 4 years on a nonviolent drug charge.

In spite of having no behavior problems since his incarceration, he was denied parole last year. He’s one of 4,405 people in Mississippi prisons serving time for a nonviolent drug charge today. One year ago that number was 3,105.

That’s a 41% increase in just 1 year. That’s staggering.

While it’s not clear yet what’s driving such a significant increase, we hope more people will urge leaders to pursue health-centered approaches to drugs rather than criminal justice ones.

Are you looking for an opportunity to do just that? If you’re between 18-35 years old, check out the Young Voices info in the “Opportunities” section below.

My call with Patrick was short, but he gave me a quick update on his life behind bars and his fears for his physical safety after watching several men get beaten up in the last few weeks.

Incarceration is necessary sometimes, but as one police chief told me, it has a very narrow scope of usefulness. When it’s used outside that scope, it compounds problems instead of solving them. The crucial question before us is whether drugs and addiction fall into that scope of usefulness, or whether incarceration compounds harm instead.

I think you know where we stand, but there’s a seat at the table for you no matter your perspective.

Yesterday I gave a presentation to graduate students, and one of them made a comment that struck me. She mentioned that her family was deeply impacted by addiction as well as death from overdose, and my presentation made her wonder, “How many more do we have to lose before we stop ignoring what’s happening?” Ignoring these problems won’t solve them, and neither will doubling down on strategies that have proven to be ineffective or make matters worse.

We can pursue solutions now that help more people stay alive and have an opportunity to build a thriving life.

Last year these solutions gained momentum, in large part because so many of YOU made the movement your own. You shared the message, invited us to speak, and connected us with many of the opportunities below. Thank you!

End It For Good – 2022 by the numbers: 

• 6 opinion articles in local, statewide, and national publications
• 7 Community Discussion dinner events with over 300 attendees
• 32 speaking engagements to 8,000 people
• 48 interviews reaching 300,000 people

A team of five can’t accomplish all of that on our own. The awesome network of advocates made up of YOU and many others are what makes the magic happen!

Looking Forward to 2023:

• Fentanyl Testing Strips – We hope to see these become available in Mississippi, so people who use a drug can know if it contains fentanyl, a high-potency opioid.
• Community Discussion dinners – We’ll be hosting several of these around Mississippi this summer. Stay tuned for dates and locations!
• Drug Policy Summit – In November we’ll host a day-long Drug Policy Summit in Jackson, MS. You can see the highlights of our previous summit here.
• Book Release – My memoir focusing on my journey from an unconventional childhood to founding End It For Good. I can’t wait for you to read it!
• Digital expansion – A lot of our work has happened face-to-face, person-to-person through events over the last 4 years. This year we’ll significantly expand our digital platforms and content. If you’re not already engaging with us on social media, we’re @EndItForGoodMS and @ChristinaBDent. Come on over!

At last week’s End It For Good Community Discussion in Natchez, MS, an attendee mentioned how cracking down on opioid prescribing led to many doctors being unable to adequately treat their patients.

This week a fascinating new white paper came out from CATO Institute on that very thing.

It’s called “Cops Practicing Medicine: The Parallel Histories of Drug War I and Drug War II.” The authors, Dr. Jeffrey Singer and Trevor Burrus, weave storytelling and research together to show how US policy on opioids has backfired. For 100 years.

At the heart of the disaster is the shift we made in the early 1900s to expand the role of law enforcement and diminish the role of medical professionals where opioids are concerned.

I remember a couple of years ago when it struck me that although doctors go to medical school for years before they can treat a patient with opioids, law enforcement agencies without medical training can arrest doctors or patients when they believe opioids are being inappropriately prescribed or used.

I have huge respect for doctors and police officers, but it seems like doctors should be the higher authority in matters affecting your health. We wouldn’t ask a school teacher to manage a building renovation or a pharmacist to design a bridge. Expertise matters in many areas, especially in something as important as healthcare and pain management.

The paper makes 4 recommendations, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them.

1. States should resist efforts to codify any new guidelines released by state and federal public health agencies. (Background: The CDC released opioid prescribing guidelines that states turned into laws. When these guidelines changed after collateral damage like this became clear, most state laws weren’t updated. Laws are very inflexible.)

2. The DEA should no longer be empowered to impose manufacturing quotas on opioids. (Background: Every year, the DEA determines how many opioids they believe all 330 million Americans will need in the coming year. Manufacturers can’t exceed these quotas, leaving many people without adequate pain relief – unless they buy illicit drugs – when quotas are too low.)

3. Federal and state law enforcement should be required to get a warrant before perusing a state’s prescription drug monitoring program database. (Background: In many states, law enforcement can look through the prescription drug monitoring program database, accessing your prescription history at will – even when no criminal activity is suspected.)

4. All physician prescribing behavior considered suspicious by law enforcement should first be reviewed by state medical licensing boards before any action is taken against the prescriber. (Background: We already trust medical boards to hold medical providers accountable in a range of areas. They – not law enforcement – have the medical expertise to determine if a doctor is prescribing in a way that should trigger a referral for a criminal investigation.)

If we want to see better outcomes related to opioids, the sooner we understand opioid use as a health issue, the better. The criminal justice system’s outsized role in people’s medicinal or recreational opioid use led to disastrous outcomes in the first half of the 20th century, as outlined in the paper, and it’s doing the same thing today.

What do you think? Can we roll back the criminal justice system’s overreach into healthcare and find a middle path where doctors are accountable, pain patients are adequately treated, and addiction is helpfully addressed? Hit reply and share your thoughts; they come directly to me.

Last week I wrote a piece for Mississippi newspapers that’s also available here.

In the article, I share the story of a young family in a Mississippi courtroom. A father was facing a non-violent drug charge, and his pregnant fiancée was begging the judge to let him come home. She was due with their first child in a few days.

The judge listened, then gave the man his sentence: 16 years in prison. Next case.

We can blame the father for breaking the law, or we can consider whether our current drug laws are actually helping us build a thriving society.

A family was torn apart in less than 15 minutes, and a child will now grow up without a father in the home.

And yet.

There are better solutions, and change is possible.

President Biden recently granted pardons to more than 6,500 people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law. That step alone won’t change the world, but it will change the criminal records of 6,500 people. Small change is still good change! Each step is an opportunity to prevent the kind of harm that happened to the family in that courtroom.

We hosted an End It For Good event 2 weeks ago, and the word “hope” cropped up repeatedly in feedback from the 75 attendees. Hope is on the horizon. Join us!

 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.

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.

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.