Category: News & Blogs

Yesterday I got an email from a young woman in Mississippi who agreed to let me share part of her message with you:

“I am a single mother and am in recovery. I have been sober almost a year and I have also been to prison because of my drug addiction. 

I am not a bad person or a criminal by any means. I was just a drug addicted woman that was trapped in a horrible cycle of trauma that y’all speak of. Now I am on the other side of my battle and I want to make a difference and help someone else come out of the pit of despair that I was once in. 

I am grateful that there are people like you out there in this world because people like me mostly get thrown away due to a decision that was made because of an addiction that I couldn’t beat…”

Mothers struggling with a substance addiction are often stigmatized because of society’s understandably strong feelings about the potential impact on their children.

I came to this work as a foster mom grappling with this exact issue.

If we lack personal experience, as I did, it can be hard to understand the life-altering hold addiction can have on a person.

Honestly, it’s also easier to rage against behavior than weep over what caused it.

So we often ask a reactive question like:

How should we punish mothers who use drugs?

 

But what if we asked proactive questions like:

How can we create the safest, widest path to help, so more mothers can overcome their addictions?

and

How can we reduce the collateral damage of a mother’s addiction, even if she can’t overcome it today? 

and the biggest question of all

How can we decrease the trauma experienced by each person in our community so we decrease their risk of addiction in the first place? 

If you read the woman’s email above, addiction wasn’t enjoyable. This was a woman “trapped in a horrible cycle of trauma,” someone who has just come out of “the pit of despair,” someone who was once “thrown away.”

If trauma could heal, she wouldn’t have been addicted. 

That’s the thing we’ve missed. More hurt doesn’t heal.

Sometimes I wonder if the term “recovery” also applies to the healing journey many people need after the trauma-filled ways we mishandle their addictions.

When we offer care instead of condemnation, we might just get more mothers echoing the end of the woman’s email:

“My daughter is back with me and life is going well.”

You may have seen on social media that I’m working on my first book! This week I’ve been writing about my childhood and how we use our imaginations.

This movement towards health-centered drug policies is primarily about preventing harm before it happens. But valuing prevention requires imagination.

Here’s why:

Kevin called me a couple of weeks ago asking for help finding gainful employment since he has a felony cocaine possession conviction.

But what if Kevin’s cocaine possession had been handled the same way as his neighbor’s alcohol possession? What if Kevin had never gotten a felony and had been able to work a regular job and provide for his family?

In the first scenario (what really happened), I can help someone who needs me. That feels really good, full of purpose. It takes no imagination to value that.

In the second scenario (what I hope will be true in a few years), I don’t even know that Kevin exists because he never got a felony or had trouble finding a job, so he never calls me. He doesn’t need me.

The prevention of Kevin’s need takes a lot more imagination to value than meeting his need. But which one is better for Kevin? 

Think of it this way: Would you rather someone stop a car from running over you, or let it run over you but make sure you get to a great hospital to fix all your broken bones?

As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Ending drug prohibition is ultimately about stopping tomorrow’s harm before it happens. 

That requires imagination because it doesn’t make the news.

But it does change lives. 

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Richard Nixon declaring a “war on drugs.”

We need to ask ourselves a very important question:

Has it worked in the United States? 

Even though the US spends $50B every year enforcing drug prohibition:

·       1 out of 10 adults has used an illegal drug recently.

·       We’re in the worst drug overdose death crisis of our history.

·       Drugs are readily available in small towns, big cities, even prisons. (Think about that for a second…we can’t even keep drugs out of prisons.)

Has it worked globally? 

In 2009, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs developed a plan to combat the world’s drug problems within 10 years. Four of their major goals are summarized below.

In 2019, the International Drug Policy Consortium compiled data from numerous sources to track the success of the 2009 UN plan. The results are summarized below, as well.

Goal #1: Reduce Cultivation

Eliminate or reduce significantly the illicit cultivation of opium poppy, coca bush, and cannabis plant.

 

Results: Cultivation Increased

Cultivation of the opium poppy increased 125% and coca bush increased 30%. Although no cultivation estimates were reported for cannabis, the UN did report that cannabis is grown in countries representing 94% of the world’s population.

 

Goal #2: Reduce Demand

Eliminate or reduce significantly the illicit demand for drugs.

Results: Demand Increased

The overall number of 15 to 64-year-olds who used an illegal drug at least once in 2016 (the last year data was available for) increased 31% from 2009.

Goal #3: Reduce Supply

Eliminate or reduce significantly the illicit production, manufacture, marketing, and distribution of, and trafficking in, psychotropic substances, including synthetic drugs.

Results: Supply Increased

In 2018 the UN reported that ‘the range of psychoactive substances available on the market has never been greater.’ The dark web has also made it easier than ever to buy illicit drugs.

Goal #4: Reduce Precursors

Eliminate or reduce significantly the diversion of and illicit trafficking in precursors. (Precursors are the chemical substances used in the manufacture of drugs).

Results: Precursors Increased

International Narcotics Control Board reports an increase in the use and number of precursors in illegal drug production.

What do we do? 

Well, if we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always gotten.

We have a choice before us: Punish? Or save lives?

We can’t do both. They’re mutually exclusive. To save lives we have to let go of harsh penalties and consider allowing people to access unpoisoned substances.

Prohibition of drugs by law is a new idea in the history of the world. Not only has it failed to achieve its goals, its left hundreds of thousands of dead people in its wake. People who otherwise would have lived.

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the ‘war on drugs,’ what do you want for the next 50? If you want something different than the last 50, it’s time to get involved.

Together, we can chart a new course. 

By Ranarda Wright

A staggering 87,000 people died of a drug overdose in America in the 12 months ending September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I’m a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces. I’ve seen other veterans become part of this statistic, and it doesn’t have to be this way. We can save thousands of lives when we recognize two things: First, drugs are not the problem. Human suffering is. Second, most people who are dying of an overdose today have taken unregulated, contaminated drugs that were bought on the street.

The day-to-day suffering in people’s lives is not an easy thing to fix. I joined the military right out of high school. Through my years in the service, I became a listening ear often to others who wanted to share their lives and talk through problems.

I saw people struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and others develop substance use disorders. Approaching my last enlistment with 17 years of service, I went back to school for formal training because I wanted to be a supporter. Today, I am practicing as a licensed professional counselor and clinical director working with clients who are struggling with mental health diagnoses and substance use disorders.

My professional training confirmed my personal experience. My colleagues who were struggling weren’t bad people, they were hurting people. Drug use isn’t the problem, it’s a solution attempt. Trauma, relationships and finances are some of the most frequent problems that people are trying to solve with drugs. This is why the criminal justice system doesn’t work well to stop people’s drug use. It adds more trauma, broken relationships, and financial hardship to a person’s life.

Instead of increasing suffering through criminal justice involvement, what can we do to help people heal?

We can invite them to treatment with a non-judgmental approach. We can pave the way for them to gain the appropriate rehabilitation through available funding. We can be cheering for them even when everyone else in their corner has stopped. This is really hard, especially when someone’s drug use has caused so much pain to them and their family. But if we want better outcomes, we have to stop throwing gasoline on the fire. New trauma doesn’t heal old trauma. Instead, we can take steps to help people find hope, healing, and connection when they’re open to it.

The problem of a contaminated street drug supply is also challenging. As prescription pills have become harder and harder to get, more and more people are buying drugs from the underground market. Buyers don’t know how potent the drugs are because there’s no regulation or quality control. This is unfortunate as the consumed amount to get high can end up killing them instead.

For people with an opioid misuse disorder, medication-assisted treatment can help. This form of treatment involves the use of medications being prescribed under the care of a physician in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies to assist individuals in their recovery process. It not only helps people stop using contaminated street drugs, it’s the most effective form of opioid addiction treatment for many people.

Drug use and overdose are complex problems, but there are better solutions. We can save the lives of more veterans as well as our friends and family members. If we want to decrease drug use, we must focus less on the drugs and more on the pain people are trying to solve with each use. If we want to decrease overdose deaths, we must expand access to medications that can help stop the use of contaminated drugs and get help for the addiction at the same time.

Ranarda Wright is a practicing licensed professional counselor and clinic director from Jackson. She received her undergraduate degree from Jackson State University and her graduate degrees in Education and Mental Health Counseling from Mississippi College.

By Carr McClain

Gen. William Sherman said, “War is cruelty. You cannot refine it.”

Our generations-long War on Drugs should be viewed through this prism. The damage wrought by this war is too great. We must come together as Mississippians and as a nation to discuss the way forward.

The destruction of people that accompanies war is inevitably justified by appealing to the righteousness, or at least the utility, of the cause. In cases like the War on Drugs, where those arguments fail, the cruelty of war is thrown into even sharper relief.

How did a cardiovascular surgeon become passionate about drug policy? A lifetime ago I was an excited young conservative Republican. William F. Buckley, Jr., was the smartest man on my Earth.

Twenty-five years ago his magazine, National Review, wrote:  “…it is our judgment that the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial and penal procedures associated with police states.”

This was always my intellectual position, but my career put a more personal stamp on the issue.

I did my residency in general surgery in Richmond, Virginia, at one of the country’s busiest trauma centers. Richmond was a key city in the East Coast illegal drug trade, and I was faced with caring for many teenagers and men who sustained gunshots — often from each other, sometimes from police — as armed gangs fought over drug territories. Law enforcement officers were occasional casualties as well.

The volume and severity of injuries would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was indeed war. Picture a teenager, his arm nearly severed at the elbow by an AK-47 round. If the picture is from a combat zone in Africa, how easily we react with pity for that child, press-ganged into a war, not of his own making. If the picture is from an American trauma center, how quickly do words like “thug” and “gangbanger” appear in our minds?

We make the cruelty of war bearable by creating psychological distance between ourselves and those we define as adversaries.

But those “adversaries” are not always armed and dangerous. Often they’re our own family members, struggling with a substance use disorder.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 1999 thru February 2019, show that over 770,000 Americans died of drug overdoses — many the result of intravenous injection of drugs, often opiates. The current opioid crisis began in the late 1990s as a surge in the use of prescription narcotic pain medication. The ensuing “crackdown” on prescriptions led, as prohibition always does, to increasingly powerful versions of heroin, then fentanyl, supplied by the illicit market.

My current career in heart surgery exposes me to a new group of war casualties: patients whose intravenous drug use has resulted in endocarditis — infection and destruction of one or more valves in the heart. I can replace a destroyed heart valve, but I cannot protect my work if these patients cannot get treatment for their primary illness: addiction.

The War on Drugs in America saves its greatest cruelty for addicted people. In our efforts to create the psychological distance necessary for war, we take refuge in terms like “junky,” “dopehead” and “scumbag.” Drug addiction is the one illness that we too often treat not with doctors, nurses and medicine, but instead with handcuffs, jail cells, and criminal convictions carried for life.

We all have different perspectives on this war, shaped by our values, our education, and our life experiences.  I know we all want the same things: safety for our children, less crime, fewer destroyed lives. It’s time we stopped fighting, time we removed these products from the criminal realm, and time we legalized and regulated them, as we do other dangerous substances like alcohol and prescription drugs.

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

By Ken Flynt

Mississippi has 78 people each serving 50+ years in prison on a non-violent drug charge, with no eligibility for parole. Twenty-one of them are serving that sentence for simple drug possession. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and people’s lives, and it does nothing to actually address our drug problems.

Paul Houser, of Caledonia, is 11 years into a 60-year sentence for drug possession. Because his sentence prevents parole and earning time off, he will serve every day of it behind bars. That makes him eligible for release when he is 104 years old. We have effectively sentenced him to death in prison for possession of a controlled substance. It is legal for us to do this, but that does not make it right or helpful.

First, lengthy sentences like Mr. Houser’s are costly to taxpayers. These 78 people have already served 1,108 years behind bars, costing Mississippians $16 million. If we do nothing and they serve their full sentences, we will pay a total of nearly $70 million just on their sentences. That does not account for the thousands of others churning through our prisons who are serving sentences less than 50 years on nonviolent drug charges.

Second, lengthy sentences do not decrease drug use or addiction. Drugs are readily available in every prison in this country, so prison certainly is not going to stop anyone from access. It may actually drive them to addiction or make an addiction worse, because our prisons are filled with horrific levels of physical and sexual violence, and research is clear that trauma increases the risk of addiction. Using trauma to address an issue made worse by trauma is counterproductive at best and inhumane at worst.

Third, lengthy sentences do not decrease the sale of drugs. As long as there is demand for a product, there will always be a supplier. We can – and we have – filled our prisons with people charged with selling drugs, and yet drug availability remains untouched. This is predictable because it is the basic economics of supply and demand. Our refusal to allow a regulated market for substances has forced that market underground, where it operates on street corners. But when we take one person off the street corner who is selling and incarcerate them, another person takes their place a few hours later. That street corner currently represents cash. As long as there is demand for a substance, there is cash to be made and a never-ending stream of people willing to break the law to get it. Finite tax dollars locking up an infinite supply of people simply has not worked.

We don’t have the choice for no one to use or sell drugs. But we can choose to address drug use as the complex health issue it is, through prevention and treatment. We can choose to address the drug market by taking these substances off street corners and putting them behind counters where we can regulate potency, purity, and age of access. On the street corner, no one is checking IDs.

Mr. Houser’s drug use is a complex health issue that should have been handled as such. Addressing it through the criminal justice system has failed to help him, failed the taxpayers, and failed to decrease drug harms. Legal regulation is not a perfect solution, nothing is. But it is one of the biggest steps we can take to be fiscally responsible, decrease our prison population, and address drugs and addiction in ways that reduce harm and move Mississippi forward.

 

Ken Flynt is retired from the Bio-Technology industry. He lives in Bailey, MS. 

By Brett Montague

For more than a century now, America has struggled to combat the harms of drugs. Today, we continue to suffer unnecessary drug-related losses through overdose and incarceration at alarming rates.

Right here in the Pine Belt, I have met with police officers and elected officials, among others, to learn about cases where their own families have suffered unecessary harms through death or long-term incarceration from drug use.

One case I learned about this year involves a young lady named Nikki.

Nikki is a native of Madison and the mother of a newborn child, but she has also spent recent years fighting off her opioid addiction, even during her pregnancy.

As a result of her prenatal drug use, her child was immediately removed from her custody and she was handed a 15-year prison sentence, which she is now serving in a north Mississippi prison.

Nikki is responsible for her actions, of course, but what about the rest of us?

Aren’t all individual persons responsible for their own actions and reactions?

If so, then are we not responsible for our response to her prenatal drug use?

Is ripping her child away from her and throwing her in jail actually going to help?

This made me wonder, what if we changed our drug laws and enacted policy that minimizes the harms of drugs and increases thriving through second chances for everyone?

As you begin to consider this question yourself, I will go ahead and admit three difficult, but honest points.

First, this is a difficult and complex issue and we must be able to distinguish the differences between drug use and drug dealing or trafficking. Organized crime and drug cartels are a big source of this problem and they should never be granted any clemency for being a scourge against humanity.

Next, the notion of drug policy reform will undoubtedly be a subject of national debate for some time to come – perhaps even into the 2030s.

Lastly, I will admit that this issue of drug policy reform only grabbed my attention following the fallout of real-life, drug-related cases from within my family and my work life.

And since this has become a top-shelf, personal issue for me, I’ve also come to realize though how many other Pine Belt families have been affected by the opioid epidemic.

What I have gradually realized is that the current overdose crisis we are facing does not discriminate.

Addiction does not care about our social status, our race, our religion, etc., and according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we are losing 201 people a day to drug overdoses – including 130+ attributed to opioids.

Here locally, having listened and learned about some of these heartbreaking cases has only increased my hunger for the status quo to change.

In an effort to make a small contribution, I spent some time during the course of the past year forging community relationships pertinent to drug-related issues and by the time last summer rolled around, I was fortunate to have had several good discussions.

It was because of those discussions that last July I found myself as the point person for a local community opioid and drug policy summit held at Lake Terrace  Convention Center.

I worked closely with a colleague from Madison named Christina Dent to plan the event. Christina’s organization, “End It For Good,” is a non-profit entity that organizes community-based discussions like the one held here about drug policy.

During her presentation, Dent focuses on the prospect of ending the so-called “War On Drugs.”

Initially, we talked about getting 25 to 30 local leaders together for a discussion.

To our pleasant surprise – and shock – we had 120 people from throughout the Pine Belt show up and participate in the discussion.

Participants from all walks of life came to the event, including those from political, legal, and law enforcement officials to people in the private sector including pharmacists, bankers, and mental health professionals.

Recovering addicts, family members of addicts, and members of the local religious community were also in attendance.

We even assembled a formal host committee consisting of nine prominent individuals representing educational institutions and other local businesses – including The PineBelt NEWS and its sister publication, Signature Magazine.

Although the size of the crowd surprised us, it clearly demonstrated there is an appetite for continued, exploratory drug policy reform discussion in our community.

Maybe it is because drug use and addiction has left virtually no family unaffected.

Maybe it is because, according to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, we have more than 3,800 non-violent drug offenders currently housed in the state prison system that costs taxpayers some $68 million annually.

Maybe it is because we know deep down that we all have our own little addictions (whether it’s spending too much time on Facebook, drinking too much coffee, or spending too much time binging on Netflix).

Maybe it is because we realize that drug addicts deserve love, compassion, and healing.

Regardless of the reason, I wonder what would happen if we changed our drug laws and enacted policy that reduces the harms of drugs?

As we leap into the new “Roaring ’20’s,” I challenge you to consider that question.

If you or someone you know is curious enough to join us for another non-threatening, drug policy reform discussion in 2020, we invite you to the table.

Together, we can embark on this journey of hope, healing, conciliation, and consensus.

Montague is a Hattiesburg native and a staunch advocate for drug policy reform in the Magnolia State. Last fall, he served as emcee of the “End It For Good” summit where attendees discussed the opioid crisis and how drug policy impacts local communities like ours. His background is in human resource management and organizational development.