Daily Archives: March 7, 2017

Are we hearing the last yelps of the dinosaurs of the war on drugs, or the roars of a racist ideology coming back from the verge of extinction? george pfromm

Richard Nixon and Ronald and Nancy Reagan would be watching this White House with a smug sense of satisfaction. Not because of President Donald Trump's coziness with Russia, or his cavalier attitude about sexual assault, but because of the Trump administration's views on drugs and criminal justice. It's hard not to imagine all these old white people in a chorus line together celebrating locking people up for using cannabis.

Trump has not spoken explicitly about cannabis policy since he took office in January, but he told a joint session of Congress last week that "drugs" are "poisoning our youth." His administration has shaken the confidence of the legal weed industry with statements suggesting punitive action toward recreational weed. White House press secretary Sean "Spicy" Spicer told reporters two weeks ago that the Trump administration saw medical marijuana as a "very, very different subject" than recreational marijuana. Subsequently, he said the Department of Justice would start a "greater enforcement" of existing federal cannabis laws. Asked for specifics, Spicer referred reporters to the Department of Justice.

The head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, spent his first two weeks as the nation's top law-enforcement official expressing an interest in restarting the war on drugs. He has reportedly told some senators in private that he won't crack down on legal weed, but his on-the-record statements have been consistently threatening toward states with recreational cannabis. He told attorneys general from around the country last week that he found it "troubling" that from 2010 to 2015, federal drug prosecutions declined by 18 percent. He promised that "under my leadership at the Department of Justice, this trend will end." He also said last week that "experts are telling me that there's more violence around marijuana than one would think" and that he was "definitely not a fan of expanded use of marijuana."

Let's be clear here: "Greater enforcement" of federal drug policy and a resurgent war on drugs means locking people up for drug use, including weed use. While states like Washington have spent the last two decades slowly relaxing weed laws, the Trump administration's views on weed have not advanced passed the Reagan era. Current federal law has a 15-day mandatory minimum jail sentence for someone convicted of their second misdemeanor possession charge. Get convicted of having one gram of cannabis twice, and a federal judge is forced to send you to jail for at least 15 days.

The effects of such policies, which Sessions praises with a small smile and his Southern drawl, are well documented. From 1980 to 2008, the US prison population quadrupledit went from about 500,000 inmates to 2.3 million. Our country's incarceration rate is not only the highest in the world, it's a statistical anomaly. We imprison people at five times the world's average incarceration rate, and African Americans are jailed at nearly six times the rates of whites. A study in 2012 showed that black people in Washington State use less marijuana than white people and yet are arrested for marijuana at 2.9 times the rate of white people.

There are still 226,027 misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions and 10,765 felony cannabis convictions in the Washington State Patrol's database, according to records obtained by The Stranger.

Almost 30 years after Reagan left office, we are only just starting to dismantle the racist drug policy system's legacy. President Barack Obama's administration worked at the federal level to reduce drug chargeshence that drop in drug prosecutions that terrifies Sessionsand Washington State's passage of I-502 legalizing weed in Washington in 2012 certainly helped, eliminating future weed arrests in this state. But it did nothing to address the decades of harm caused by our state's cannabis laws of the past.

Some Washington State lawmakers are trying to change that, and they introduced a bill this year to make it easy for anyone with a misdemeanor marijuana possession conviction to clear their record of that crime. After all, misdemeanor possession is no longer against state law. Oregon passed a similar law two years ago, but Washington's version has an uphill fight in Olympia.

While the federal government appears emboldened by the idea of locking more people up for using cannabis, it's worth wondering: Are we hearing the last yelps of the dinosaurs of the war on drugs, or the roars of a racist ideology coming back from the verge of extinction?

***

Washington State governor Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson have put themselves on the national stage in their opposition to Trump's agenda. Their lawsuit against Trump's ban on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries effectively knocked out the president's executive order after it prevailed in US District Court and Appeals Court.

Inslee and Ferguson are also fighting to preserve local laws when it comes to cannabis. They sent the Trump administration a letter in February making the case for our state's legal pot industry. Within hours of Spicer's threat of "greater enforcement" of federal cannabis laws, Ferguson issued a statement vowing to "use every tool at our disposal to ensure that the federal government does not undermine Washington's successful, unified system for regulating recreational and medical marijuana." That's a strong statement from an attorney with a 20 record against the Trump administration, but the only problem is, this time the law is not on Ferguson's side.

If Sessions or Trump wanted to start enforcing federal weed laws today, they could immediately start charging the cannabis industry's growers, retailers, budtenders, bankers, accountants, and casual smokers with federal crimes.

US representative Adam Smith, who represents parts of Seattle, Bellevue, and Tacoma, said that fact is worrying. "In the plain language of the law, if the federal government wants to come in and start busting marijuana shops, we are somewhat at their mercy," he said. "And that is very, very concerning."

Obama's Department of Justice issued the Cole Memo and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a guidance, both aimed at placating nerves in the legal weed industry. The Cole Memo, signed by US deputy attorney general James Cole, told states with legal weed that the federal government would adopt a hands-off approach to federal cannabis laws if states followed a few guiding principles, namely keeping weed out of the hands of kids and profits away from organized crime. The FinCEN guidance, issued by the Department of Treasury, told the banking industry that banks would not be prosecuted for money laundering if they opened accounts with cannabis businesses, as long as those businesses were compliant with the Cole Memo.

But those are guidance memos, not laws. They establish no legal precedent and can be rescinded at any time by the current administration.

Sam Mendez, the former executive director of the University of Washington's Cannabis Law and Policy Project, said it would only take a simple injunction, a legal order to cease activity sent from Sessions to Washington State, to shut down the I-502 industry.

"They could just shut it down by legal means. This is an industry and state regulatory system that at its fundamental level is based on an illegality," Mendez said. "So that's their legal mechanism right there."

There is one law protecting medical cannabis businesses from federal action. The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment to the federal budget bars the Department of Justice from spending any money investigating medical cannabis businesses, but a 2016 federal court ruling narrowed the protections of that amendment to strictly medical transactions. It's unclear whether it would apply to Washington's pot industry, where the medical and recreational systems have been combined into one.

"The Rohrabacher-Farr amendment doesn't offer much help to most 502-licensed businesses because few of those businesses are likely to be limiting their sales to medical purposes," said Alison Holcomb, the former ACLU attorney who wrote the text of the I-502 law. "As long as a business is selling cannabis to a person using it for nonmedical purposes, it is fair game for a DEA investigation."

Trump has the law behind him if he cracks down on legal pot, but there are still daunting challenges standing between Trump and a wholesale attack on our legal weed system. To start, weed has never been more popular in America than it is right now. A recent poll found that 71 percent of Americans think Trump should not go after states that have legalized cannabis, and 93 percent of Americans support medical cannabis laws.

Since Trump is already on the line to deliver an unpopular border wall and repeal an increasingly popular health-care law, most people don't see this as a fight he would want to pick.

"It's hard to predict what Trump does around politics and policies given how inexperienced he is, but we do know that he cares a lot about public image and public opinion. This is not going to be something that is going to look very good," Mendez said.

And weed's popularity has generated a huge industry around it. There are thousands of pot farms and pot retailers operating in the 28 states where weed has been either recreationally or medically legalized, and prosecuting that many individuals and firms would require an immense number of lawyers and law-enforcement personnel. The federal government relies heavily on local law enforcement to carry out drug-enforcement raids, but because cannabis is legal under state law, local cops can't be used to shut down the industry.

"Think of how many hundreds or even thousands of businesses are out there operating. If they were going to go after all of those businesses, that would take thousands of pages of paperwork," Mendez said.

It would be much easier for Sessions to investigate individual businesses that he believes have violated the parameters of the Cole Memo. Aaron Pickus, a spokesperson for the Washington CannaBusiness Association, said the trade group is advising its members to closely follow the state's laws.

"Right now, we are emphasizing how important it is to make sure you are following the rules as set by Washington State," Pickus said. "Make sure you are dotting all your i's and crossing all your t's and following best practices to make sure that minors aren't getting into your store."

Individual enforcement against certain businesses would be better than wholesale destruction of the industry, but the Department of Justice would still be picking a fight with some well-connected individuals. In this War on Drugs II, the dealers aren't marginalized people operating in the shadowsthey are mostly white, male, wealthy businesspeople. It's probably easier for Sessions to lock up a poor person who doesn't look like him than to lock up a bunch of rich guys with millions in their bank accounts. And Congress, never one to miss out on a wealthy constituency, recently created the nation's first Congressional Cannabis Caucus to stand up for common-sense weed laws.

Plus, if state leaders and industry leaders and weed's powerful allies in Congress can't team up to scare Sessions away from touching our legal pot, our state could push the button on the so-called "nuclear option." As we previously described in The Stranger, we could technically erase any mention of marijuana from our state's laws, effectively legalizing and deregulating pot, and giving Trump a huge nightmare when it comes to keeping drugs away from kids and cartels.

That's all to say, it's unclear what will happen. The path forward for Trump shutting down legal weed is as clear as Spicer's response to a follow-up question on what he meant about "greater enforcement" of cannabis laws. He said, and I quote: "No, no. I know. I know what II thinkthen that's what I said. But I think the Department of Justice is the lead on that."

Got that?

He added, "I believe that they are going to continue to enforce the laws on the books with respect to recreational marijuana."

***

If you ask Holcomb, who is often called the architect of I-502 because she wrote the successful initiative, why we need legal weed, she will point to one issue.

"The point of I-502 was to stop arresting people for using marijuana," Holcomb said. "And I-502 was the right vehicle at that time to move us in that direction, and depending on what happens now, we may have to move in an entirely new direction. But the North Star is the same North Star: Don't arrest people... because they use marijuana or grow it and want to share it with others."

Thanks to Holcomb's initiative, the state has spent the last five years doing exactly that: not arresting people for cannabis crimes. But bad laws take a long time to stop affecting people. Punitive Reagan-era laws still haunt people who were caught in the war on drugs dragnet, and I-502 was a proactive law, meaning it did not address any of the thousands of people who were previously charged with cannabis crimes. As for those 226,027 misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions mentioned earlier, the ones still in the Washington State Patrol's database, each one of those drug convictions continues to haunt the people carrying them, according to Mark Cooke, an attorney with the ACLU of Washington.

"Criminal conviction records allow others to discriminate against that individual in different contexts, including employment, housing, and education," Cooke said.

It may seem like in this modern, weed-friendly world, a misdemeanor possession charge doesn't mean much, but that is not the case. The types of background checks that many employers or landlords use lack specificity. Applications often ask if you have been convicted of any drug charges, according to Prachi Dave, another attorney for ACLU-WA.

"Frequently the question is 'Do you have any drug related activity convictions?' So a prior marijuana conviction could certainly fall into that category, which means a lot of people could be excluded from housing or employment," Dave said.

Someone carrying a misdemeanor possession charge can ask a court to clear their record, but there are a number of different reasons a judge could deny that request. Representative Joe Fitzgibbon, who represents West Seattle and Vashon Island in the state legislature, wants to change that. He introduced a bill in Olympia this year that would require courts to automatically expunge a person's misdemeanor marijuana conviction upon request.

"Currently, there are a bunch of caveats, but even if they meet all of the caveats, the judge can still say no," Fitzgibbon said. "The bill would make it much easier for someone with a misdemeanor marijuana possession to vacate their record."

Oregon passed a similar law in 2015, but Fitzgibbon's bill failed to make it out of committee in Olympia this year. He's introduced a version of this bill every year since 2012, when voters legalized adult possession of cannabis here. The current bill won't get another chance until next year.

Fitzgibbon said he will keep fighting for the law. "I think it's about fairness and about second chances. The voters of the state very clearly said that they didn't think possession of marijuana should be a crime," Fitzgibbon said.

Kevin Oliver, executive director of the Washington chapter of NORML, said his organization plans to step up its lobbying for the bill. "We have a lobbyist on the ground full time, our new PAC is raising money and we're going to start throwing it at these legislators, and I think that might make a difference," Oliver said.

If they act quickly, they might be able to clean up the beach before this second war on drugs sweeps in.

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Trump Signals That He Wants to Restart the War on Drugs - TheStranger.com

President Donald Trump described them as Americas forgotten people, the less-educated white, middle-aged Americans. This group of individuals, together with the baby boomers and the so-called Generation X, are among the most vulnerable to heroin and prescription drug abuse. Several studies indicate that the number of drug overdose deaths among baby boomers, Generation X and less-educated white Americans has jumped in recent years.

Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in late February showed that the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2015 was more than 2.5 times the rate in 1999. The CDC claimed that the spike in the number of drug overdose deaths was tied in to the drop in the price of heroin along with easier access to prescription drugs.

In 1999, the rate of drug overdose was estimated at 6.1 per 100,000. It jumped to 16.3 per 100,000 in 2015 or an increase of 5.5% annually. From 1999 to 2006, the number increased by 10% and then another 3% from 2006 to 2013 before jumping again by 9% per year from 2013 to 2015 as shown in government data.

The pattern of drugs involved in drug overdose deaths also has changed in recent years, according to an official in the CDC report. In 2010, 29% of drug overdose deaths involved natural and semisynthetic opioids and 12% involved methadone. In 2015, the percentage of drug overdose deaths involving these drugs decreased to 24% and 6%. In contrast, drug overdose deaths involving heroin increased from 8% in 2010 to 25% in 2015. Increases were also seen in drug overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, from 8% in 2010 to 18% in 2015.

Brady Granier, president, CEO and director of BioCorRx Inc. (BICX) expressed concern over the growing drug abuse problem in the U.S. He agrees with the governments opinion that drug overdosedeathsis a major public health burden. The CDC reported that the total number of drug overdose deaths totaled 47,055 in 2014.

Granier commented, The best way to combat this problem is through prevention, but this will take a collaborative effort between parents, educators, governments, not for profits, law enforcement agencies and more. Then on the other side, theres treatment and recovery. Treatment options are evolving to address that side of the problem especially in the field of medication-assisted treatment. We are seeing some potentially very effective new tools on the horizon that can help people more efficiently in the areas detox and relapse prevention.

Pain medication now cheaper than other illegal drugs

The drop in the price of pain medications is one of the leading causes why many Americans are misusing the drug and becoming drug addicts, according to the CDC report.

Since 1999, the amount of prescription opioids sold in the U.S. nearly quadrupled yet there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain that Americans report, according to the CDC. They also said that statistically, the number of deaths from prescription opioids has risen more than 400% over the last 15 years. This includes abuse of medications like oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone.

A similar study by researchers at the Princeton University has confirmed that the so-called forgotten people of America are more susceptible to drug overdose deaths due to drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis.

The Princeton study concluded, Those with less education saw the most marked increases. Rising midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in midlife morbidity.

Americas 'War on Drugs'

The year 2016 was a banner year for the U.S. Coast Guards fight against drug trafficking with a record illegal drug haul.

The Coast Guard seized more than 416,000 pounds of cocaine with a street value estimated at $5.6 billion by the end of October 2016. The catch was the largest made by the Coast Guard in a single year of its history, covering 263 operations spanning the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

That year, the Coast Guard also arrested 585 suspected drug smugglers, 465 of whom were repatriated to the U.S. mainland to face charges.

However, Americas War on Drugs netted an estimated 1.25 million individuals arrested in the U.S. in 2015 for possession of illegal drugs. The war on drugs also resulted in unparalleled hostility and instability in drug-producing nations including Mexico, Colombia, etc. Sadly, illegal drugs still proliferate the streets despite the billions of dollars spent by the federal government in the fight against illegal drugs.

Miracle cures?

The stigma associated with drug addiction is preventing most from seeking treatment. A study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health has found that only 14% of drug dependents will seek treatment. A majority of drug addicts find it difficult to accept that they are addicted to an illegal substance which is typically the first step in the treatment process.

Researchers said that the stigma attached to being labeled a drug addict has a profound impact in the fight against addiction as it prevents treatment resources from reaching many people who need them, and it discourages drug dependent individuals from seeking treatment at all.

However, Granier said there are several programs available to rehabilitate those suffering from addiction while preventing them from relapsing. BioCoRrx offers its BioCorRx Recovery Program, a non-addictive, medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program used to treat both alcohol and opioid addictions to independent treatment providers across the U.S..

The program uses naltrexone in an implantable form that can block cravings and prevent relapse for several months while the patient goes through the proprietary counseling program that was written by addiction experts specifically for those receiving long term naltrexone treatment. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist that blocks some of the effects of alcohol and opioids and has been FDA approved in the oral and injectable form for many years. The program also includes 12 months of peer recovery support to add another layer of support for the patient and family while also tracking results using an algorithmic software program.

Big pharmaceutical companies Insys Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:INSY), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:AMPH), Mylan NV (NASDAQ:MYL), Opiant Technologies Inc. (OPNT), Adapt Pharma Ltd., Kaleo Pharmaceuticals andAlkermes (NASDAQ:ALKS) are also offering their own solutions to the drug menace.

One of the first-line treatments for opioid abuse includes Reckitt Benckiser Groups (MEX:RB N) buprenorphine, which is being marketed under the Suboxone brand name. But Suboxone is facing controversies over alleged illegal trade practice and the drug itself is suspected of causing addiction amongst its patients.

Another first-line treatment is naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan. Narcan is said to be an effective treatment to reverse opioid overdose if treatment is administered in time. However, the price of Narcan has spiked tremendously over the past month making the drug very expensive.

A third option is naltrexone, a nonaddictive medication that is found to be an effective medication in the fight against opioid abuse, as well as alcoholism. Alkermes, a $8.39 billion pharmaceutical company, is currently selling naltrexone under its Vivitrol brand.

Granier added that BioCoRrx is in the preclinical stage of developing its own injectable naltrexone. He said, BICX101 is being developed to provide another option to patients and doctors in the fight against addiction. Our goal is to deliver a product in a much smaller volume, with a smaller needle, and therefore presumably, less discomfort. He added that the product should not require refrigeration and may also be able to be given subcutaneously instead of in the buttocks.

Number of drug overdose deaths to decline

While the statistics on the drug overdose deaths is a cause for alarm, health authorities and researchers are predicting that the volume of drug overdoses will decline soon. They cited better law enforcement practices and more effective monitoring of prescription drugs should help reduce the drug overdose cases and eventually the number of deaths associated with it.

Scientists at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health estimated that the number of deaths from drug overdose will peak at 50,000 this year declining to a nonepidemic state of 6,000 deaths by 2035.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Cagayan de Oro City Police vows 'less bloody' war on drugs - SunStar Sun.Star THE chief of the newly formed City Drug Enforcement Unit (CDEU) of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office said Tuesday, March 7, police operatives will, ... and more »

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Cagayan de Oro City Police vows 'less bloody' war on drugs - SunStar - Sun.Star

By Euan McKirdy and Buena Bernal, CNN Published: March 6, 2017 9:39 AM CDT Updated: March 6, 2017 9:43 AM CDT

The self-proclaimed head of the notorious Davao Death Squad (DDS) has claimed under oath that he killed almost 200 people and was paid millions of pesos -- more than $20,000 -- for his actions by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Arturo Lascanas, a retired police officer, told the Philippine Senate that DDS members received money from the then-mayor in exchange for brutal killings of not only criminals but also of Duterte's enemies in politics and the media. At the time, Duterte was mayor of the southern Philippines city of Davao.

"We were motivated by the reward system ... when a killing is ordered and there's a price," he said. On top of payment for individual hits, he said that he had for 20 years received a monthly stipend of P100,000 (around $2,000) from Duterte.

The Philippines government has vehemently denied Lascanas' testimony, calling it a "fabrication."

"Lascanas tale on (Duterte's) alleged involvement in the EJK (extrajudicial killings) in Davao is a fabrication ... there is a contradiction between his statement in the press conference and in his affidavit executed the day before he made the press conference," Sal Panelo, Duterte's chief legal counsel told CNN by text message. Lascanas also had appeared in front of the media last month.

"(Duterte) is outraged by any extrajudicial killing. Neither will he tolerate it. He abhors any violation of the Constitution or any law. Anything he does as President is pursuant to the constitutional duty of serving and protecting the people imposed on him by the basic charter."

The hearing is the first one under the Committee on Dangerous Drugs and Public Order.

Special: City of the Dead: A neighborhood destroyed by Duterte's war on drugs

Senator Leila de Lima, one of the President's harshest critics, said that she had "no doubt" that both Lascanas and Edgar Matobato, another alleged DDS member who had come forward, were "credible."

"No doubt Lascanas' testimony, like that of Matobato is credible. Both Lascanas and Matobato are actual and direct participants in many incidents of killing as ordered by then Mayor Duterte. Their testimonies are based on their personal first hand knowledge, hence, admissible and worthy of credence," she said in a statement.

"From these revelations, the hard, ugly and inconvenient truth is that President Duterte has a criminal mind as he is in fact a criminal, a mass murderer at that."

De Lima was arrested on drugs charges last month. She and her supporters maintain that the arrest is a politically motivated vendetta. She remains in detention and cannot participate in the hearings.

No tears left to cry: Voisces from inside Duterte's Davao City

In a complete reversal of earlier statements, Lascanas testified before the Senate inquiry that he was part of the infamous group, which had operated in Davao from the mid-1990s to as recently as 2013.

In a Senate hearing in October 2016, he had denied being a member of the group, refuting the sworn evidence of Matobato, who claimed in testimony in September 2016 to the Senate that he was a member of the DDS.

"There is no Davao Death Squad, your honor. That is all media hype," Lascanas said at the time.

The vigilante group was allegedly composed of men from specialized anti-crime police units as well as former militants, he said.

War on drugs: Priest speaks out against Philippines 'blood lust'

Lascanas said in Monday's testimony that he was personally responsible for the deaths of almost 200 individuals, including 30 innocent bystanders.

Lascanas said his motive for changing his story was his "desire to tell the truth, not only because of my spiritual renewal" but also because of his fear of God.

"I wanted to clear my conscience," he said. He added that he had lied in his previous testimony out of fear for his family's safety.

Killer with a conscience: Could this former death squad member bring down Duterte?

Supporters of the President say that Lascanas' testimony is politically motivated.

One senatorial ally of the President, Sen. JV Ejercito, said he cannot allow "the Senate (to) be used for any destabilization plot" but only for the sake of ferreting out the truth.

"(You might be being used) to pin down the president, this administration," Sen. Manny Pacquiao, the boxer and another senatorial ally of the President, told Lascanas.

Another pro-Duterte lawmaker, Alan Peter Cayateno, suggested the drug gangs who were suffering at the hands of Duterte's national police force were behind pushes to oust the President.

At the hearing, representatives from the Philippines Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said they will open or resume investigations on the Davao Death Squad.

"Because this is a continuing investigation, the CHR will be conducting and calling on (Lascanas and Matobato) and requesting to submit their affidavits," Commissioner Roberto Eugenio Cadiz said.

Philippine National Police Director for Investigative group Gen. Marquez said the police will open investigations of unsolved cases based on Lascanas' testimony.

"We will dig up these records and we will match and find corroborating evidence," he said.

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The Philippine president's war on drugs - NewsOK.com

Why the system deals with its crack and heroin crises differently

More than a quarter of the 51,000 people in Ohios prisons are drug offenders, and the state is trying to figure out how to move some of them to treatment at the local level. In this installment of Opioids: Turning the Tide in the Crisis WKSUs M.L. Schultze looks closer at the evolution of the legal system from lock them up to get them help.

The head of Ohios prison system says the state cant afford to lock up its heroin problem. Director Gary Mohr been pushing for more treatment and transition programs in his prisons, such as the Harmony project at the womens prison in Marysville.

But he says, overall, prisons an expensive and counterproductive place to kick a drug habit.

I dont know how many articles have been written in the last six years about us sending non-violent low-level people to prison that I worsen them.

So Ohio has launched a pilot program to pay counties $23 a person a day to keep low-level offenders back home. Thats about a third the cost of a day in prison, and Mohr says community programs cut the recidivism rate in half. Mohr is also advocating to give judges more latitude in sentencing and expunging records.

They have the information about an individual. . Theyre looking at the support whether it be employer, family. Were not looking at that in Columbus.

Click here for a snapshot of Ohio's prison statistics

It would be hard to find a bigger fan of such approaches than Dr. Odell Owens, former Hamilton County coroner who now runs the nonprofit agency Interact for Health in Cincinnati. But he questions if attempts to treat, rather than incarcerate, people with drug addictions would have gained so much support without one other big change.

Ninety-seven percent of the heroin overdoses in this area are white. And unfortunately in this country, we still respond to color.

Its not just in Cincinnati. A national study in JAMA Psychatry in 2014 found nine in 10 new heroin addicts are white.

And Owens says theres a huge shift in approach since the days when crack was the dominant drug problem. You have police agencies saying Hey, you can walk in and bring your heroin and we wont arrest you. They have never said that for the crack people.

Owens says, ironically, some historic racial inequities may have made the new heroin crisis a predominantly white issue.

African Americans were less likely to have insurance when insurance routinely paid for opioid pain pills. And Owens says some doctors were more hesitant to prescribe painkillers for African-Americans. So when laws clamped down on the pills, the addicts turning to heroin were most likely white.

But the African-American community has hardly been spared from this drug crisis and is still living with consequences of the last one including mandatory minimum sentences.

No discretion for judges For Shauna Barry Scott, that minimum was 20 years in a federal prison.

When the war on drugs was launched initially, it was launched against people of color. It was done without regard for families being destroyed. Communities of color were just decimated.

'It was done without regard for families being destroyed. Communities of color were just decimated.'

She was sentenced back in 2005, for selling about 3 ounces of crack.

Some portrayed her as a significant dealer in Youngstown. Others noted she was a married mother of five, struggling to fund a charity to feed hungry kids.

She acknowledges she made a lousy choice selling the drug that was devastating her community. But if she were convicted today, her sentence would be about five years. Thats largely why President Obama commuted her time in 2015.

Now shes trying now to set up a program for those returning after long prison stays, some of the nicest, kindest most precious people Ive ever met in my life and to think about people like that being buried away in prison, what does that accomplish?

Lessons learned and a huge death toll Stark County Judge John Haas says its a mistake to read race into the shift in emphasis in the courts toward treatment. The founder of one of the oldest drug courts in the state says the system has simply learned from failures of the war on drugs.

'It was terrible and ravaging, but they weren't dying like they are with heroin.'

We have everybody and it just is not an issue. Its looking at a person whos got a problem, if they have a problem, how can we get them through it?

And court administrator, Dwaine Hemphill, says another reality of the heroin epidemic has made the shift inevitable: The number of people who are dying.

Crack and meth destroyed humans, their health, their appearance. It was terrible and ravaging, but they werent dying like they are with heroin.

What would Jesus do? Gary Mohr, the head of Ohio prisons, says it would be a mistake to believe everyone is a convert to a treatment model. He often hears some version of: Why bother? Let the addicts die.

To which Mohr bristles and points to his role model: Lukes biblical account of Christ on the cross with two criminals beside him.

The last human being that he talked with was a criminal, who was rightly convicted and he had compassion. I have compassion. And I just dont subscribe to the belief of those people being that different than I.

And Mohr maintains compassion regardless of race -- is the only way Ohio will find its way out of this drug crisis and whichever one comes next.

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Race, Deaths and Past Wars on Drugs: All Shape Ohio's Response to the Heroin Crisis - WKSU News