Category Archives: War On Drugs

BISMARCK Overdoses have skyrocketed in recent years as opioids flood the area and addicts play a lethal lottery by using street drugs with unpredictable potency that are claiming more and more lives.

Bismarck police reported 22 overdoses and one drug-related death in 2017. By 2019, the Burleigh County jumped to 34 overdoses and four deaths, increasing to 74 overdoses and eight deaths in 2020.

Last year, the toll exploded to 134 overdoses and 19 deaths and the pace so far this year, if it continues, could again double, suffering 270 overdoses and claiming 40 lives.

Thats unacceptable to me, said Bismarck Police Chief David Draovitch, who added that there would be an uproar from the public if Bismarck saw 19 homicides in a year. Its crazy what opioids are doing in this town.

Bismarck police and fellow law enforcement officials vow to crack down on dealers and are advocating tougher prosecutions and sentences to act as a deterrent. But Draovitch and his colleagues know their efforts have limits.

Theres no way as law enforcement that we can arrest our way out of this problem, the police chief said. We just need to take the demand away.

The war on drugs here is headed to the emergency room.

The Bismarck Police Department, together with Heartview Foundation and Sanford Health, has a $900,000, three-year federal grant to start medication addiction treatment for opioid addicts who come into the emergency room. The Heartview Foundation is a nonprofit substance use disorder program with locations in Bismarck and Cando.

Opioid abusers who overdose and are revived by naloxone, a treatment that blocks the drug from reaching the brain, leave the ER with acute withdrawal symptoms, including sweating, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and seizures.

What do they do?" said Kurt Snyder, Heartview Foundations executive director and a licensed addiction counselor. "They go use."

To break that cycle, the treating emergency room doctor will administer a drug that eliminates that craving, and an addiction specialist from Heartview will be in the ER to make sure the person gets referred to treatment.

Officials are preparing to launch the intervention and recovery program soon with a goal of starting in April.

Were really looking forward to this, Draovitch said. Were hoping it will turn some people around and get them the help they need.

Dr. Chris Meeker, chief medical officer for Sanford Bismarck, said emergency room physicians will be able to prescribe enough medication for patients to transition to care at Heartview.

Were working closely with our partners to finalize plans and hope to make a difference soon in the lives of patients and families suffering with addiction, he said.

Those in Bismarck-Mandan who are battling the scourge of opioid abuse say the need for action is urgent. They fear the problem is poised to get worse.

Kurt Snyder, executive director of the Heartview Foundation in Bismarck, speaks during a press conference at the Bismarck Police Department on Tuesday about the increase use of heroin and fentanyl in the area. Next to Snyder is Bismarck Police Detective Jerry Stein and Dr. Melissa Henke, Heartview Foundation's medical director. Bismarck Tribune photo.

Its like its on jet fuel, Snyder said. I think were at the very edge of a huge surge of overdose deaths again.

'Honey spot' for drug dealers

A drug enforcement task force recently confiscated a press for making pills in a Mandan raid a seizure police found alarming, because it means opioid counterfeit pills are being made locally.

Right within our state, people are making pills and selling pills, said Luke Kapella, a special agent with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation and head of the Metro Area Narcotics Task Force.

Pill seizures in Bismarck-Mandan have doubled every year since 2019, when agents seized 1,500 pills, a number that last year soared to 9,500.

This year, we are already at 9,500, Kapella said, adding that the task force is on pace to seize 40,000 pills this year.

The influx of opioids seems especially pressing around Bismarck-Mandan, Minot and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, an area that has been hard hit since the boom in the Oil Patch, he said.

A dealer can buy a pill for $1.50, turn around and sell it on the street for $50 even $80 at Fort Berthold, Kapella said. One dealer alone estimated that last year he sold more than 100,000 pills, a number representing an illegal profit of $2 million or more, he said.

Thats just seizures in Bismarck-Mandan, Kapella said. Thats what were seeing. Thats what were fighting.

This week, Bismarck and Mandan police warned the public to be aware that they have responded to overdoses apparently involving fentanyl, which is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin. A dose equal to a few grains of sand can be lethal.

Police have uncovered a pipeline from gangs in Detroit who bring drugs into North Dakota, where they are unlikely to encounter violent rival dealers and have found a lucrative market, he said.

That outside connection since has broadened, with drugs also coming in from Chicago and Arizona. Detroit figured it out first, but other people have followed, Kapella said. Everybodys in the game now.

North Dakota is well-known as a honey spot for drug dealers and is celebrated as a haven for traffickers in rap songs, he said.

The alarming increase in the supply of opioids and the corresponding upswing in overdoses and deaths has prompted a series of roundtable discussions among law enforcement agencies, drug treatment professionals and others. The first was held in the Bismarck-Mandan area.

The idea behind the roundtable discussions is to reignite the conversation about opioids and related overdoses and to strengthen relationships between entities working toward positive outcomes, said Sgt. Wade Kadrmas of the North Dakota Highway Patrol, which is working with the Department of Human Services on coordinating the roundtables.

Draovitch and Kapella say prosecutors and judges need to get tougher on the dealers who are flooding the state with opioids. Our criminal justice system is a revolving door, Kapella said..

The approach to start working on treating addicts when they arrive in the emergency room will be an important part of reducing demand for highly addictive opioids, Kapella said.

Under the current approach, Theyre not getting help right away, he said. This will hopefully get these people help right away.

The program Bismarck police and its partners are launching is called an opioid overdose bridge.

It calls for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to address the opioid overdose crisis.

Through the grant, opioid addicts will start medication-assisted treatment right away, and also will get start recovery treatment right away, rather than having to wait for an opening.

To have a broader impact, the effort also includes increased communication efforts to reduce the stigma associated with substance abuse disorder, opioid use disorder and medication addiction treatment.

The partners will work with a steering committee of clinical professionals, law enforcement officers and survivors.

The program is patterned after CA Bridge , an initiative in California that started in 2018 with eight hospitals and has grown to 155 hospitals providing medication for addiction treatment. A large national study has shown the method is associated with the largest decrease in overdoses and a reduced likelihood of a serious opioid-related hospitalization.

The CA Bridge program plans to be in all California hospitals by the end of 2023. The approach is catching on nationally and is being used in more than 30 states, said Sarah Windels, a national adviser for the project.

Weve had great success, she said, adding that California hospitals have treated about 100,000 patients in the last two years.

Its actually going to be the standard of care pretty soon throughout the country, she said. The Biden White House this week proposed $10.7 billion to fund research, prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery support services.

The initiative would include $5.8 billion for interdiction efforts to reduce supply and advocates universal access to medication for opioid use disorder by 2025. The plan would allow providers to begin treating patients with medication for opioid use disorder via telehealth and would eliminate outdated rules that place unnecessary administrative burdens on providers.

People are treated with medication to curb opioid cravings help to keep them in treatment so they can overcome the illness of substance use disorder, Windel said. Just medication alone makes a dramatic impact on lives saved, she said.

Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski said the Bismarck project sounds promising, and hell be eager to learn the results. Since 2016, Fargo has seen drug overdoses jump 200%, and fatal overdoses are up more than 100%, resulting in 98 overdose deaths, including 23 last year.

Thats a lot, he said.

Excerpt from:

'It's crazy what opioids are doing in this town:' Bismarck takes the war on drugs to the emergency room - INFORUM

New Yorks first cannabis sale permits will be given to those impacted by the war on drugs, according to officials.

Over 100 licenses will be given to people with marijuana-related offenses that occurred before March 31, 2021, when New York legalized recreational use of the drug.

This is in an effort to make up for the disproportionate number of Black and Brown people arrested and jailed on nonviolent drug charges, the states cannabis control board said Thursday.

Were jumpstarting the cannabis industry today, and its investment into the communities that have been most impacted by the criminalization of cannabis prohibition, said Chris Alexander, executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.

Brittany Carbone, a board member of the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association, said the reparations for years of abuse were a good start.

Allowing people who have previous convictions access to retail dispensaries is such a huge step in the right direction, Carbone said. Not only does it go toward repairing the damage caused by the war on drugs, but it also gives them a head start in the market. This is really important because these populations are not the populations that are going to be entering into a venture like this super well-capitalized.

Getting a head start in the market will prevent big businesses from coming in and monopolizing the market, Carbone said.

Access to capital is so restricted because of the federal status of cannabis, Carbone said. You see these large companies come in right away and shut a lot of people out.

Excerpt from:

First licenses to sell marijuana will be given to New Yorkers impacted by the war on drugs - WSHU

Check Out Photos of St. Vincent, Tame Impala, The War on Drugs, and More From the Innings Festival, February 26th, 2022

Mar 11, 2022By Joshua MellinPhotography by Joshua Mellin

Innings Festival, a celebration of both music and baseball, had its 2022 edition in Tempe, Arizona on February 26 and 27. It proceeded undeterred from the news of the MLB lockout. Despite the delay to the preseason Cactus League games that usually complement the two-day festival, faithful fans descended on Tempe Beach Park sporting their favorite teams jersey for an early spell of summer with some of the festival seasons All-Stars.

As part music festival/sports convention, attendees were treated to headlining sets from Foo Fighters and Tame Impala alongside days of hitting the batting cages and fast pitch with MLB legends like Roger Clemens, Rick Sutcliffe, and Kenny Lofton.

Black Pistol Fire and Dashboard Confessional turned in energized opening day sets, as Billy Strings mesmerized with a surprising lightshow reminiscent of an EDM act to complement his fiery bluegrass finger-picking like a pitcher with a slider that drops off the table.

Annie Clarks St. Vincent took the opportunity of the first show of the new year to revive 2011 Strange Mercy track Year of the Tiger for the first time since 2018, in her final stateside show untl September 10th atyou probably didnt guess itBostons Fenway Park, opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers alongside Thundercat.

After being acquired via trade for original headliners My Morning Jacket, The War on Drugs played suitable fill-in for a breezy dessert evening before Kevin Parker and Tame Impalas psychedelic Rushium-era-induced haze descended over the crowd to close out the weekends preseason program.

Check out photos from the event below.

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Check Out Photos of St. Vincent, Tame Impala, The War on Drugs, and More From the Innings Festival - Under the Radar Mag

A number of people have said it, but and I feel it, actually: Im a wartime president. This is a war. This is a war. A different kind of war than weve ever had. ~ Donald Trump, Former President of the United States

We are at war. All the action of the government and of Parliament must now be turned toward the fight against the epidemic, day and night. Nothing can divert us. ~ Emmanuel Macron, President of France

This war because it is a real war has been going on for a month, it started after European neighbors, and for this reason, it could take longer to reach the peak of its expression. ~ Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of Portugal

We are at war with a virus and not winning it. ~ Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General

We must act like any wartime government and do whatever it takes to support our economy. ~ Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The president said this is a war. I agree with that. This is a war. Then lets act that way, and lets act that way now. ~ Andrew Cuomo, Former Governor of New York

You get the picture. Leaders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemicreallywanted us to think of ourselves as combatants possessing a civic duty to fight an insidious, unseen enemy. They wanted us to think that victory was possible. They wanted us to understand that there would be casualties, and collateral damage, and to steel ourselves for the inevitable enactment of broad and unfocused policies that would keep us safe, no matter the cost.

This isnt all that surprising in hindsight. Politicians love to use war as a metaphor for just about every collective enterprise: the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on cancer. They understand that war provides an incomparable motivation for people to make sacrifices for the greater good of their countries, and when they want to harness some of that motivation, they pull out all the metaphorical stops.

Leaders have been searching for a moral equivalent of war for a very long time. The idea was introduced by psychologist and philosopher William Jamesin a speechat Stanford in 1906 that has been credited for inspiring the creation of national projects such as the Peace Corps and Americorps, both organizations aspiring to enlist young people into meaningful, non-military service to their country:

I spoke of the moral equivalent of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.

People are willing to do things during a war that they wouldnt be willing to do during peacetime. During World War II, it was impossible that German bombers would reach the middle of the United States, yet citizens in theU.S. Midwest practiced blackoutsto demonstrate their commitment to defeating an enemy they had in common with people far away. People that actually had to sit in the dark at night to be safe.

This was what leaders using war metaphors were asking from their citizens at thestart of the pandemic:

The war metaphor also shows the need for everyone to mobilize and do their part on the home front. For many Americans, that means taking social distancing orders and hand washing recommendations seriously. For businesses, that means shifting resources toward stopping the outbreak, whether in terms of supplies or manpower.

However, it wasnt just social distancing and handwashingleaders were asking for cooperation for a complete lockdown, a complete suspension of normal life for a short, yet vague and undefined period of time. There was no thought to how this would actually stop a highly contagious virus, or how people would be expected to return to normal life when the virus hadnt completely disappeared. There wasnt a desire to mobilize the engines of democracy for war. Instead, there was a mandate to shut them down. Economic production wasnt maximized, it was minimized.

I was skeptical of the ability of shutdowns to do much good from the beginning, and was very much afraid thatpanic and overreactionwould have serious consequences. I didnt use war metaphors because it never occurred to me that they would be in any way helpful. Yet when I advocated trying to minimize collateral damage byallowing people who were less vulnerable to severe disease to resume their lives, others criticized that I was for surrendering to the virus. The use of war metaphors wasnt just limited to leaders, but had quickly spread to the broader population.

Some international leaders tried to resist the temptation to use war metaphors, but ultimately failed. After telling the Canadian House of Commons that the pandemic wasnt a war,Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau couldnt resist: The front line is everywhere. In our homes, in our hospitals and care centers, in our grocery stores and pharmacies, at our truck stops & gas stations. And the people who work in these places are our modern-day heroes. Trudeau later also couldnt resistusing extreme measuresnormally reserved for wartime to quell a protest led by the very truck stop heroes he had once glorified.

War metaphors have their uses, asexplained by sociologist Eunice Castro Seixas:

Indeed, the findings of this study show how, within the context of Covid-19, war metaphors were important in: preparing the population for hard times; showing compassion, concern and empathy; persuading the citizens to change their behavior, ensuring their acceptance of extraordinary rules, sacrifices; boosting national sentiments and resilience, and also in constructing enemies and shifting responsibility.

Constructing enemies and shifting responsibility would play an important role later on in the pandemic, when extreme and damaging measures didnt work and politicians resorted to blaming their own citizens for failing to cooperate with damaging and unsustainable measures.

Some academics, like anthropologist Saiba Varma,warned that:

Analogising (sic) the pandemic to a war also creates consent for extraordinary security measures, because they are done for public health. Globally, coronavirus curfews are being used to mete out violence against marginalised (sic) people. From the history of emergencies, we know that exceptional violence can become permanent.

It was obvious that working class and poor individuals would be disproportionally harmed by draconian COVID measures, and that the wealthy, or Zoom class mightactually benefit:

We have, for example, already witnessed how people in already quite privileged positions are the ones who have the ability to work from home, which means that they also have more potential to act according to health recommendations, while others run the risk of being dismissed from their work or of their businesses going bankrupt. Then, there are those in positions identified as socially important functions that cannot choose to avoid risks, particularly in the care sector, where the risk of infection is the largest and shortages of protective equipment exist. Last, not everyone has the resources that are required to participate in pandemic self-governance (knowledge of how and when to shop, having people who can help you, the hospital closest to you having enough respirators, etc.).

The authors to the above article, Katarina Nygren and Anna Olofsson, also commented on the criticism of lax pandemic response measures in Sweden, noting how the pandemic response in Sweden was vastly different from that of most other countries in Europe because it emphasized personal responsibility rather than relying on government coercion:

Thus, the Swedish strategy to manage Covid-19 has been largely based on the responsibility of the citizens who receive daily information and instructions for individually targeted self-protection techniques by the Public Health Agency of Swedens website and press conferences held by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, Prime Minister Stefan Lfven, and other representatives of the government. They continue to underline the importance of all citizens playing their part to stop the virus from spreading and avoiding the enhancement of law enforcements restrictions on citizens rights as long as possible.

With recommendations rather than prohibitions, the individual becomes the unit of decision making towards whom claims of liability are directed if he or she does not manage to act ethically according to social expectations. This kind of governing of conduct, which has been characteristic of the Swedish risk management strategy during the pandemic thus far, targets the self-regulating individual in terms of not only trust but also solidarity. This type of governing was explicitly made by the prime minister in his speech to the nation on the 22nd of March (speeches that are extremely rare in Sweden) in which he particularly emphasized individual responsibility not only for the sake of personal safety but for the sake of others.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Lfven,used precisely zero wartime metaphorsin his March 22, 2020 speech to the nation about the COVID pandemic and the response of the Swedish government. Within the next few months, the Swedish response was, rather predictably,viciously attackedby other leaders and media outlets for its failure to conform to the rest of the reflexive lockdown-mandating world. Yet the Swedish strategy has overall not resulted in much higher deaths,currently 57th in COVID deaths per million inhabitants, well below many of its critics.

There were only a few other notable exceptions in the metaphorical blitzkrieg of war imagery by world leaders in their early pandemic speeches. Another was German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whosaid of the pandemic, It is not a war. It is a test of our humanity! The reluctance of a German leader to use a war metaphor for something that is clearly not a war is both understandable and admirable.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was contemptuous of lockdowns and refused to use war imagery in his speeches, making it quite clear thatpandemic deaths had no easy collective solution, only hard choices: Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it? How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution. Not surprisingly, he was widely condemned for these comments.

Interestingly, much of the analysis and criticism of the use of war metaphors for the early pandemic response came from left-leaning outlets, likeVox,CNN, andThe Guardian, where journalist Marina Hyde wrote:

As the news gets more horrifyingly real each day and somehow, at the same time, more unmanageably unreal Im not sure who this register of battle and victory and defeat truly aids. We dont really require a metaphor to throw the horror of viral death into sharper relief: you have to think its bad enough already. Plague is a standalone horseman of the apocalypse he doesnt need to catch a ride with war. Equally, its probably unnecessary to rank something we keep being informed is virtually a war with things in the past that were literally wars.

Anarticle in Voxwarned of the consequences of too much power in the wrong hands:

A war metaphor can also have dark consequences. If we look at history, during times of war, its often been the case that war is accompanied by abuses of medicine and the suspension of widespread ethical norms, Keranen said, citing Nazi use of medicine or other public health trials that have been conducted on prisoners and war resistors over the years. Especially now, we need to be on guard for this with the clinical trials and other product development that were undergoing, so that in our haste to fight the disease with a military metaphor, were not giving away our fundamental ethical concepts and principles.

Giving away our fundamental ethical concepts and principles is arguably exactlywhat happenedinmanywestern nations, yet hard-hitting and often accurate criticism from left-leaning media outlets speaking out against the pandemic as a war view had all but gone silent sometime after November 3rd, 2020. Coincidently, the conflation of a pandemic public health response with a military one has all but been erased by an actual war when Russia invaded Ukraine. An actual war tends to bring perspective back to places where it has been lost rather quickly.

With two full years of hindsight, its clear that lockdowns were a disaster and that mandated measures caused more harm than benefit, yet this has not prevented leaders fromdeclaring victory, crediting their own brave and resolute leadership for saving millions of lives and routing the viral enemy. However, SARS-CoV-2 isnt a real enemyit doesnt have an intention other than to exist and spread, and it wont agree to an armistice. Instead, we will have to live with the virus forever in an endemic state, and skip the victory parades.

Theres no evidence that calling the pandemic what it truly was a global natural disaster, admitting our limitations for defeating it, and calling on people to stay calm and avoid acting in irrational fear wouldve resulted in a worse outcome. Its more likely that the collateral damage of broad and unfocused responses would have been avoided in a pandemic-as-disaster scenario.

There would be no need to view leaders as military commanders or experts as heroes or high priests of absolute truth. Rather, the humble and rational response that Swedens leaders enacted and the proponents of theGreat Barrington Declarationproposed will be remembered as the least damaging among many others that resulted in failure and defeat on the metaphorical battlefields of public health.

Republished from Substack

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine - Terre Haute. Formerly CDC/NIOSH. Immunology of Infectious Disease.

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War Was Always the Wrong Metaphor - Brownstone Institute

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09 March 2022

The global War on Drugsis one of the single-most catastrophic public policy failures in history. Now one Victorian MP has put forward a bill to decriminalise the personal possession and use of prohibited drugs.

The private members bill doesnt have the support of the government or opposition, so its highly likely to fail, but itsstarted an important conversation about how our drug laws are harming people, and how we can improve them.

The whole point of prohibition was to reduce drug use and drug-related harms. Not only has it failed to do so, its had the opposite effect.

Prohibition has expanded drug markets and created a more dangerous drug supply. Drug-related deaths increased 60% worldwide between 2000 and 2015. Illicit drugs now account for 1.3% of the global disease burden.

In Australia, law enforcement consumes between 61-69% of the total drug budget, and treatment only 20-23%. As a result, every year we arrest 80,000 Australians for drug use, while up to half a million cant access the treatment they need.

Governments need to recalibrate their drug budgets so the lions share of funding goes into treatment services, where its an investment, and not law enforcement, where its a sunken cost. They also need to listen to the health and law enforcement professionals who are calling on them to immediately decriminalise the personal possession and use of prohibited drugs.

Decriminalisation simply means that while the personal possession and use of drugs would remain illegal, criminal penalties would not apply. Instead, people would be diverted from the criminal justice system and referred to treatment and support services.

At present, policing of our failed drug laws overwhelmingly targets everyday people who use drugs. In Victoria, for example, almost 95% of drug arrests are of individual users, with 80% of all drug arrests last year only for drug possession or use.

Decriminalisation would enable law enforcement to focus its efforts on going after the real criminals instead of everyday citizens who happen to use drugs.

Drug use is not a problem we can arrest our way out of.People continue to use drugs even when it is unlawful to do so. And criminalisation causes many people to delay seeking help when they have a problem with illegal drugs for fear of getting in trouble. Not only does criminalisation limit help-seeking, we punish and imprison people instead of giving them the treatment and support they need.

Portugal decriminalised the personal possession and use of drugs two decades ago. Despite widespread concern it would encourage drug use and create chaos, this hasnt happened.

In stark contrast, drug use has not increased. Related crime has fallen. Health outcomes are better. Fewer people are dying. Order has been restored.

The Portuguese model is so successful because it removed criminal penalties for personal possession and use of prohibited substances from the law, and adopted a health-focused approach to drug use. Other jurisdictions are now emulating its success.

Instead of criminal charges, people found with small amounts of drugs are provided advice and health interventions from a panel consisting of a legal expert, health professional, and social worker supported by a multidisciplinary team. The panel also links people with a network of other supports, including employment, psychological, medical, and housing services. People can also access safe forms of drugs theyre dependent on from government-approved providers.

Compare that to Australia, where criminal penalties for personal possession and use of drugs remain in law, and to avoid them people must go through a drug diversion program. Diversion programs exist throughout Australia, and while they have many benefits, they also have drawbacks.

Benefits of drug diversion programs include cost savings, high compliance and decreased offending following diversion. The big drawback is people can still face criminal penalties when they shouldnt.

Victorias drug diversion program, for example, prescribes treatment and has a maximum of two diversions. Cautioning decisions are left to the discretion of police officers or the court. This discretion, coupled with the limit on diversions and mandated treatment, results in inconsistent and unfair outcomes.

Theresa range of reasons why people might fall through the cracks of diversion programs. They may not be ready for treatment, or they may be struggling with an addiction and are unable to reduce their drug use without professional help.

Thats why drug diversion programs should be made mandatory, limits on the number of cautions removed, and treatment must always be voluntary.

The COVID pandemic has reminded us all of the importance of evidence-based health policy in keeping people safe.

The sooner we apply this pandemic lesson to drug policy, and decriminalise the personal possession and use of drugs, the better.

This article was first published on Monash Lens. Read the original article

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It's time to decriminalise personal drug use. Here's why - Monash University

Jenna Mellor, executive director of the N.J. Harm Reduction Coalition, said the problem is getting worse and not better.

We are using Band-Aids for a huge wound in our drug policy, she said.

The increase in deaths is modest when compared to other states, according to Angelo Valente, executive director of Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey. He added while the numbers have shown some stabilization, his organization is not satisfied with it.

We need to be able to make every effort to bring those numbers down and hopefully to eliminate the problem completely, he said.

The U.S. surpassed a grim milestone in the first year of the pandemic; more than 100,000 overdose deaths were recorded. That represents a 28.5% increase over the previous period. The biggest increases were seen in Vermont, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Mellor adds that New Jersey has historically doubled down on the war on drugs. According to a report she authored for New Jersey Policy Perspective, the state spent $11.6 billion to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate people for drug crimes between 2010 and 2019.

As long as we take a drug war approach, we are not going to see the reduction in overdose deaths that we so desire, she said.

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Increase in N.J. drug overdose numbers suggests more needs to be done - WHYY

Irish society has lost the war on drugs, a top retired Garda has said, as it was revealed how there was a seven-fold increase in the value of cocaine and heroin seized by Revenue last year.

reedom of Information figures released to Newstalk show that 72m worth of cocaine and heroin were seized last year, compared to just 10m the previous year.

However, according to Revenue, the total value of drugs seized in 2021 was 115m up from 45m the previous year.

Retired Garda Detective Inspector Pat Marry said it is time to consider a new approach as Irish society had lost the war on drugs.

Cannabis and cocaine maybe there might be an argument there for decriminalising people having it on their person, like a certain amount, he said.

They did it in Portugal and they are reaping the benefits now of their strategy there because they had a huge suicide rate and now the suicide rate has dropped dramatically.

He pointed out that Portugal has seen no arrests for personal possession in the past 16 years.

In 2015, an Oireachtas Justice Committee travelled to Portugal to see first-hand the effect of the country's decriminalisation policy.

In 2019, the working group called for a health-led approach to the possession of drugs for personal use.

A Citizens Assembly on drug use is to start work next year after the Government set up a working group five years ago to examine alternatives to conviction for minor drug offences.

In 2020, Ireland had the third highest death toll from drugs in Europe behind only Britain and Sweden.

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New figures reveal how 72m worth of cocaine and heroin were seized last year - Sunday World

Baden Hicks battled drug addiction for 20 years, during which he says he survived 18 overdoses, five by the skin of his teeth.

He has experienced homelessness, been in and out of psychiatric wards and jail. But the 36-year-old wants to be known as more than just a drug addict.

Im a father, Im a brother, Im a son, Im a grandson, Im an uncle. Through my functional addict years, I got a boilermaker apprenticeship, I went to night school and did further studies in that. I worked in the dive industry for eight years. Im a scuba diver and a spear fisher, he tells Guardian Australia.

People dont choose to become drug addicts. Theres a reason why people generally use drugs. For me, I used drugs to deal with a lot of pain in my life, which really felt unbearable.

Having graduated from marijuana to cocaine, heroin, speed and ice, Hicks credits lawyer Michelle Goldberg from First Step with saving his life after she represented him in a case, introduced him to a mental health worker and helped him get a place in the services ResetLife program.

He has now been in recovery for 15 months and has completed a certificate IV in alcohol and other drugs, is volunteering at First Step and working in peer support at Turning Point, an addiction research and education centre in Richmond, Melbourne.

He has also spent time at Victorias parliament in recent weeks to garner support for a bill put forward by Reason party MP Fiona Patten to decriminalise drugs.

Under Pattens bill, to be debated on Wednesday, police would issue a compulsory notice and referral to drug education or treatment to people believed to have used or possessed a drug of dependence.

If they comply, there would be no finding of guilt and no recorded criminal outcome.

Patten has described the war on drugs as one of the most disastrous public policy failures in modern history, which has destroyed lives, wasted money and created a black market that has enriched organised criminals.

What were doing hasnt reduced arrests, it hasnt reduced harm. It hasnt reduced use, she tells Guardian Australia.

Decriminalisation is supported by the United Nations and the World Health Organization and in Australia by the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Royal Australian College of Physicians, as well as several key drug and alcohol bodies.

But getting politicians to buy in is another matter entirely. Both the Andrews government and the opposition have ruled out supporting Pattens bill.

We know the harmful impact illicit drug use can have on the community thats why Victoria police is constantly focused on targeting drug dealers and manufacturers to break up their criminal activity, a government spokesperson says.

Thats despite costings by the Parliamentary Budget Office that found Pattens proposal would save the state $33m between 2021/22 and 2024/25 and more in following years, thanks to a reduction in drug enforcement activity by courts and prisons, although this would be partially offset by a decrease in revenue of $1.3m due to a reduction in fines.

Patten describes her model as a streamlined version of whats in place in Portugal, which saw drops in problematic drug use, HIV and hepatitis infection rates, overdose deaths, drug-related crime and incarceration rates when it became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances in 2001.

Victoria isnt the first Australian jurisdiction to debate decriminalisation. Possession of cannabis has been decriminalised in Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Northern Territory for decades.

Theres also a private members bill before the ACT parliament that, if passed, would allow people found with a personal supply of drugs to pay a small fine rather than face criminal charges.

In New South Wales, a plan to introduce a three chance warning system for people found with small quantities of drugs was put to cabinet in December 2020 but opposed by several ministers including deputy premier John Barilaro and police minister David Elliott.

Patrick Lawrence, CEO of First Step, says in his 20 years working in the sector he has never met someone dealing with addiction who hasnt suffered trauma.

The greatest impact of our current drug laws is felt not by the recreational drug user but people who have survived childhood poverty, sexual abuse, homelessness and the absence of love and bonding, he says.

According to the Victoria Police Drug Strategy 2020/2025, police are focused on targeting drug dealers and manufacturers to break up their criminal activity and connecting those suffering addiction with treatment and support services.

The strategy states drug problems are first and foremost health issues and urges officers to show empathy: Drug users could be our children, members of our family, our friends or people who have lost their way. When we see the human, we will see the way forward.

Greg Denham was part of Victoria police in the mid-1990s when a drug policy expert committee set up by then-premier Jeff Kennett recommended the adoption of a harm-minimisation approach.

The committee, headed by academic David Penington, also called for the use and possession of small amounts of cannabis no longer to be an offence, while heroin and other drugs to remain illegal, but with the use of cautions and referral to drug treatment centres for the first offence.

Diversions were introduced and were being used in 80% of circumstances, Denham says.

At the time police were advised that they should use it as often as they can, that a person can get more than one drug diversion. But a lot of police started to say Well, why should we give them a second chance? Why should we give them a slap on the wrist so many times? he says, noting diversions are currently being used in 20% of circumstances.

We need policies that are actually enshrined in law rather than just words that can be easily ignored and disregarded.

Denham says the state has slipped backwards when it comes to drug policy reform and blames politicians.

Its almost become a taboo topic. Theyre so concerned their words may be misconstrued or they may be the next headline in the tabloid press, Denham says.

The Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt, however, maintains Pattens bill is not needed, given officers have been issuing cautions and diverting people into treatment programs for many years.

To be quite honest the settings at the moment are quite balanced. Its simply a fallacy to suggest that low-level drug users are all going to jail, he told reporters last month.

Patten, who has successfully led campaigns on other social reforms, including the Richmond supervised injecting room, the enactment of the nations first assisted dying laws and most recently, the decriminalisation of sex work, concedes her bill wont pass without the support of one of the major parties.

But she is hopeful for a commitment to progress, potentially through a trial, which wouldnt require legislation.

On Hickss right arm is a tattoo of a moral compass. Instead of coordinates, he is guided by morality, wisdom, humility and courage. He hopes politicians will take the same approach.

I hear politicians say they want to focus on mental health and physical health issues. My mental health issues and physical issues have been caused by addiction. You treat addiction and then youre going to be treating mental illness, he says.

You treat addiction, you change peoples lives.

Crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14.

The National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline is at 1800 250 015; families and friends can seek help at Family Drug Support Australia at 1300 368 186.

The Opioid Treatment Line is at 1800 642 428 or call the National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline on 1800 250 015.

Originally posted here:

'People don't choose to become addicts': the push to end Victoria's war on drugs - The Guardian

In the summer and early fall of 2020, as protests and riots swept across the United States, a new consensus began to emerge among progressive activists, writers and politicians. Given that black men, from George Floyd to Daniel Prude, were dying in drug and mental health-related altercations with law enforcement, perhaps police should not be handling these issues at all.

The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, for instance, wondered whether people with guns should even be responding to mental health calls. Pilot projects were launched all over the country to replace police with civilian response teams for 911 calls involving mental health, drugs and homelessness. Congresswoman Katie Porter introduced a bill to pay states and cities to set up more such units, while her colleague Cori Bush introduced a bill that does much the same.In many cities, decriminalisation, long a rallying cry for progressive critics of policing, became standard operating procedure.

The activists are right that police cannot be the solution to mental illness and drug abuse, which overlap in about 50% of cases. But the programmes developed to replace law enforcement have had mixed results. Thats because in many of Americas progressive enclaves, the problem isnt that its the police who are responding to these emergencies. Its that there is little the police can legally do once they get there.

Lejon Butler is a tall, lean, black man who lives in Rodeo, a bedroom community in the North Bay Area. As a kid in the East Bay in the Eighties, he recalls going to school and being taught to Just Say No to drugs, then coming home and smelling the familiar chemical odour of freebased cocaine wafting through the air.

Lejons mother, Martin, who is now deceased, and his stepfather, Craig, were drug addicts. But Craig was such a high-functioning addict that he was able to conceal his use from his family for years. He ran a successful landscaping business while getting high every day, even trading services with one of his clients for Oxycontin. But a few years ago, he overdosed. After that, dementia set in.

By now Craig was living in Richmond, a working-class residential city in the East Bay. A few months before Lejons mother passed away, Craig had started to become violent towards her. When she died, in April 2021, he fell into a deep depression. He became aggressive and unpredictable. He threatened to kill his grandson with a samurai sword. He put a dagger to his own stomach and threatened to gut himself. On January 5 this year, he started a fire in his kitchen and then refused to leave the house, acting like nothing had happened. His family called 911.

The responding officer was Brian Lande, who, as part of the countys Mental Health Evaluation Team, specialises in handling these sorts of calls. Officer Lande had spoken to Craig only a few days earlier. He makes a point of checking in on people with mental illness and addiction issues when theyre not in crisis. That way hes able to get to know them as they really are, and not just when theyre sick.

When Lande arrived at Craigs house, Lejon, his wife, and his niece Dnaya were already outside. Lande intended to put a psychiatric hold on Craig, which would allow a hospital to keep him for up to 72 hours. He also recommended that Dnaya fill out an application for a restraining order, which might help persuade the hospital to keep him there instead of just releasing him within a few hours.

The family had been through this drill many times before. Craig fell neatly through a gap in the system. He had dementia, but that didnt count as a mental illness for the purposes of institutionalisation. He threatened his relatives lives, but he rarely actually attacked them, so the criminal justice system wasnt inclined to take him seriously. Someones going to have to get killed for them to do anything, Lejon told me.

An ambulance pulled up, and the EMTs walked over to get a rundown from the cops. Then they went inside with two of the officers and came out with Craig on a gurney. Craig is in his seventies, and looks, if anything, older. Hes a small, stout Japanese-American man with sheet-white hair and an unkempt beard and moustache. His belligerence with the family stopped as soon as the first responders arrived. Suddenly he was compliant and reasonable.

This, according to Lejon, was a tactic of his stepfathers. Hes a very intelligent man, Lejon said. Hisantics cease the moment hes interacting with the authorities. Craig was deemed stable and released back to the family that evening, at which point the chaos flared right back up again.

Its a pattern Officer Lande has seen time and again. People have crises, they go to the hospital, they get stabilised, he said. They agree to a treatment plan. Then theres no follow-up. He continued: Having a system of coercive mental healthcare thats limited to emergency psychiatric crises thats wedded strictly to voluntary participation youre condemning people to not getting the level of care they need. Youre condemning them to never get better.

Craig is drug-addicted and psychologically debilitated, but he at least has a house to sleep in and a family to keep tabs on him. Hundreds of thousands of Americans suffering mental illness and substance addiction lack even that basic structure to their lives. In recent months, weve seen what happens when the most violent among them are left to their demons: Americas cities have been struck by a series of grisly, unprovoked murders of women committed by homeless men.

The deceased in these homicides were not the only victims. The acutely mentally ill and drug-addicted are prisoners of their sicknesses, and despite all the money weve thrown at homelessness, our policies have amounted to a wholesale abandonment of these broken people to their grim fates.

In San Francisco, that chronic failure has become the citys official policy. An entire downtown neighbourhood, right in the heart of the city, has been effectively ceded to drug dealers, addicts and the mentally ill, all in the name of compassion. Users in the Tenderloin smoke fentanyl and shoot heroin on the sidewalks in broad daylight. When it rains, the train station there becomes a huge underground shooting gallery.

Following the spectacular failure of the War on Drugs, the prevailing ideology in the addiction treatment world became harm reduction. Harm reduction aims to respect the rights and dignity of drug addicts by destigmatising their drug use; to minimise the social harms that accompany drug addiction such as crime, incarceration and discrimination; to save lives by providing safeguards against overdoses; and to offer detoxification but not to require it as a condition for social services and subsidies. The motto of harm reduction is meeting people where theyre at, rather than compelling abstinence as a one-size-fits-all-solution.

But the approach has its critics, who view it as well-intentioned but ineffective. There are aspects of harm reduction that I support, and there are aspects that blur the lines between harm reduction and enabling, said Tom Wolf, a former addict in San Francisco. The most important thing is to have a full continuum of care that focuses on recovery, not an indefinite maintenance of ones addiction.

Out of thousands of people I saw maybe two get clean, said Ginny Burton, a former addict in Seattle, describing her work as a case manager employing the harm reduction model. What Ive seen actually work, and experienced myself, is separation. Separate the person from the destructive environment. Maintain that separation long enough for the person to get clarity. Then implement services based on priority of need.

This is how she got clean. Thank God I was arrested, she said. But in cities like Seattle and San Francisco, the enforcement policies that resulted in her arrest dont exist anymore. If I was loaded today, I wouldnt be able to pull myself out, she said. I wouldnt be arrested.

Tom Ostly, who was a prosecutor under the former San Francisco District Attorney, agrees that the states coercive powers are what are needed to jolt drug-addicted people into making the commitment to go clean. He once prosecuted a man who had walked up to a random man on the street, punched him in the face and broke his nose. The whole assault was caught on video. With his priors, the defendant was facing 12-15 years in prison.

It turned out the mans son had died, and the grief had turned the father into a drug addict. The day of the assault was the anniversary of his sons death. He had been on a self-destructive spiral. Facing 15 years in prison, he agreed to go to intensive drug rehab instead, where he received counselling for PTSD. Hes now taking classes to be a drug counsellor and will soon graduate from college.

Those kinds of prosecutions just dont happen anymore in San Francisco, where its considered more humane to allow people to continue killing themselves with drugs than to force them to stop. The current administration lets everyone out and gives them no services, said Ostly. Its bullshit.

Jail is a lousy place to get clean, and drug use in and of itself should not be treated as a crime. Those lessons have come across loud and clear from the failed War on Drugs. But in rejecting the politics of mass incarceration, weve also thrown out the very idea of coercion. And without that, were empty-handed in the struggle against addiction and the rampant crime that it engenders.

Drug addiction itself is coercive. Giving an addict the choice to continue to use or to voluntarily get clean is as illusory as pushing someone off a roof and giving them the choice to either fall or fly. The current approach in cities such as San Francisco, Officer Lande said, assumes people exercise full voluntary volition over their behaviour, and they dont. The decision to get clean has to be as non-optional as an addicts choice to continue using. It has to be forced.

That doesnt have to mean jail in fact, it shouldnt. Ginny was incarcerated repeatedly, but she finally got clean not through the criminal justice system but through her diversion to drug court and mandated rehabilitation. Nevertheless, coercion was an indispensable element in that successful intervention. The certainty of consequences is what finally broke through the fog of addiction.

You dont want to overly criminalise people, said Officer Lande. But you have to have some non-carceral way. Some judicial process beyond what the current system has.

Right now its very black or white, he continued. Youre either a psychotic or youre not. Youre either a grave danger to others or youre not. We dont have anything in that grey area. We just have to wait until people are hitting rock bottom before we can do something.

More:

Why America is losing the war on drugs - UnHerd

Toekies residents expressed their disappointment in governments failure to help rid the streets of drugs and other issues in the area.

Executive Mayor of the West Rand District Municipality (WRDM) Hullet Hild; MMC for Health and Social Development, Una Dickson; and Brigadier Mashole Jacob Manamela, the Randfontein Police station commander were among the panellists during the meeting spearheaded by Gauteng MEC for Community of Safety, Faith Mazibuko.

Also read: No woman gives birth to an addict and no father raises a gangster MEC to Toekies community

The venue of the meeting on Wednesday March 2 was the Emmanuel New Life Centre.

Residents took to the floor and spoke out about the many recreational facilities in Toekomsrus that had been neglected and turned into white elephants, resulting in youngsters turning to drugs to pass the time.

They said such circumstances were a breeding ground for thugs and lawlessness, exacerbated by the increasing unemployment among the youth who have the potential to do much better.

Residents said police had failed them, adding that although drug dealers were arrested, theyd soon be seen roaming the streets freely and continuing to cause destruction among the youth of the area, many of whom were suffering irreversible effects of prolonged substance abuse.

They decried the fact that although there were facilities that could be used as a good distraction, they had been neglected and no one would be willing to give answers as to why theyve not been upgraded or revived to nurture those who have good potential to excel in sport.

When it comes to fighting crime, residents said theyre working in silos, and even though their common goal was to combat crime, a collective entity had to be establish to clean up the streets effectively.

Another participant said the issue of drugs in the area had become out of hand so much that there was a house in Toekomsrus where users were known to be queuing to get their fix in broad daylight.

The resident who cannot be named for her protection said she had since taken it upon herself to chase users away. The woman who is selling the drugs there is even swearing at me.

My son was one of the drug victims and hes not normal anymore, and I have to face that every day. If we dont act against drugs now there will no longer be a future for our children as these drugs are finishing our children, the woman said.

Conrad Moses was upset that resolving the matter had not been given the serious attention it warranted, saying whats happening in Toekomsrus was no laughing matter.

We dont know how many millions were spent on the stadium, but today it looks much worse. How are we going to prevent crime if our children dont play sport? Moses asked.

Another resident spoke about the lack of response from the police, saying the community was at the mercy of young children with unlicensed firearms who were desperate to make a quick buck, and were capable of doing anything for it.

Enrique Bhana of WAWA expressed his disappointed because the MEC was not even aware of WAWAs existence in the West Rand region doing its bit to help.

As a former professional soccer player, it pains me to see our facilities in such a state of decay. We cant even help kids who have the potential for sport because of whats going on. Years ago soccer legends came from here, but today we dont have proper facilities, Bhana said.

Desmond Lephale said he had lost many potential boxers to drugs.

Bruce Nimmerhoudt, MMC for Human Settlement in the Rand West City Local Municipality, spoke in his personal capacity and expressed his wish that the engagement with the MEC was not just another exercise of all talk and no action. I am asking for an open-door policy with communication thats going to be robust and not just happen once in a blue moon, or once every five years. We should have practical workshops to find practical solutions that will address and speak to the challenges of this community.

Nimmerhoudt went on to criticise Randfontein Police management based on the fact that their crime statistics had shown an increase, which he said was a clear indication that police had failed the community.

Views of those like Dalmain Hogans were welcomed as he suggested to the MEC to take those from rehab centres into recyclables centres, where funds could be raised to clean and revive public facilities, and promote agriculture to help impoverished families put food on the table.

In his response to some of the issue raised on crime, Brigadier Mashole Jacob Manamela, the Randfontein Police station commander said the police had noted every concern that was raised in the meeting.

We encourage people that when they intend to work with us, they should do so through the CPF.

We also have many complaints from parents who are being victimised by their children as they demanded their next fix and weve tried our best but we cant be a solution to every problem in the community. Parents must also take full responsibility for their own children, because if we as parents let children to do as they please, it is obvious theyre going to do the wrong things, Manamela said.

Manamela furthered responded that their high statistics reflected the fact that the police were attending to the issue, but also admitted that the war against drugs was far from over.

MEC Mazibuko who closed the meeting said the Gauteng Department of Community Safetys safety plan strategy is underway.

We will demand a report from those who have been assigned with this task, and if they underperform we will show them the door, MEC Mazibuko said.

The rest is here:

The war on drugs: Toekies residents take a strong stand - Randfontein Herald