On Wednesday, February 27, the Rural Substance Abuse
Awareness Coalition held a daylong seminar to raise awareness of substance
abuse at the Central High School Cultural Arts Center and help curb this
scourge on our society. Hallmark Youthcare, a residential treatment facility in
West Creek
The program was sad and depressing, yet hopeful that the
knowledge participants carried away with them could begin to address the
problem of substance abuse.
“Hidden in plain sight” refers to the many ways that drugs
and alcohol are concealed in everyday objects and emphasize the fact that addicting
substances are everywhere today.
A display created by the Culpepper Police Department was
shocking in its ordinariness. An innocent bag of gummy bears—the candy kind,
not those laced with controlled substances—could be soaked in vodka and taken
to school as a seemingly innocent snack. A highlighter that comes apart to reveal
marijuana pipe; containers for things like suntan lotion and soft drinks made
to hold hidden compartments are readily available on the internet.
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| This highlighter hides a marijuana pipe |
Compressed air, used to clean computer keyboards, is
sometimes “huffed” by kids with deadly results. Opening a seam in the back of a
beloved teddy bear creates a hidey hole for a pill bottle. A pocket concealed
in the crown of a baseball cap could be a handy place to store keys while jogging
or secrete an illicit substance.
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| Dangerous cargo hidden in Teddy Bear |
While the skyrocketing death rate from the opioid addiction
epidemic is getting lots of attention, more “traditional” addiction, to street
drugs and alcohol ruins lives of young people and adults.
Two videos put the issue into human terms. The first-person story of a woman who became addicted
to opioids following an injury and served time in prison, not for addiction,
but for crimes she committed to feed her habit. She told of attending open houses to steal
drugs from medicine cabinets. “I knew I was going to end one of two ways, “she
recalled. “I was either going to overdose or get shot by someone whose home I
broke into.” She got clean and works every day to stay that way.
A heart-rending recollection of a mother who lost her
daughter to an overdose segued into the informational portion of the day.
Brian C. Moore, a special agent with the Virginia State
Police assigned to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Drug Enforcement
Section for District 5, presented a terrifying overview of the issue.
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| Virginia State Police Special Agent Brian C. Moore |
Drug addiction causes heartache; increases criminal activity
and kills. Addicts come in all shapes, sizes, ages. They could be the person
next door, Moore said. “Pain pills are so easy to get that some people pop them
like Skittles. When they can no longer obtain them with prescriptions, they
turn to street drugs, like heroin, which is a more affordable alternative when
you’ve been hooked.”
Moore told of a colleague who used pain medication recovering
from an injury and progressed to hard drugs. He spent all of his money,
including a second mortgage on the family home, to feed his habit before he got
help.
Illegal drugs, including high quality meth, heroine, and the
deadliest of all, fentanyl, are being made in China and flooding into America
from Mexico and Canada, Moore said. Fentanyl, intended to relieve severe pain for advanced
cancer patients, is 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine. Sometimes,
explained Moore, heroin is “cut” with fentanyl with deadly consequences. The
substance is so toxic, that law enforcement officers carry overdose reversing Narcan
with them in case they accidentally come into contact with fentanyl, which
could kill.
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| the size of a deadly dose of fentanyl |
“Home cooked meth” can be made almost anywhere, also with
deadly outcomes. “If you suspect you are around a meth lab, turn around and run
the other way,” he said. The process can be very volatile causing burns and
inhalation injuries. People have been known to cook meth in soda bottles while driving
down the road and toss them out the window if they begin to explode, creating
deadly roadside litter.
“We don’t want to put addicts in jail, we want them to get treatment
and get back into society,” said Goochland Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Caudill.
“Addicts go to jail for the crimes they commit to feed their habit. If you sell
and distribute drugs, you will go to prison.”
Michael McDermott of Maidens, who works with the McShin Recovery
Resource Foundation said that addiction is a human problem. McShin (www.mcshin.org)
which offers same day no charge service. “There’s no reason not to get help. No
more obituaries,” said McDermott.
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| Michael McDermott (l) with the McShin Foundation and Goochland Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Caudill (r) |
Other local sources of funded treatment are the Goochland
Powhatan Community Services Board(http://www.gpcsb.org/), and the Rural Substance
Awareness Coalition (http://rsaac.org).
“Drug addiction is an affliction I would not wish on my worst
enemy,” said Caudill. He urged those present to keep a watchful eye on the
activities of their children to prevent addiction and get help if needed.
1 comment:
Why are we surprised? We chose a policy that we knew ahead of time would not work. We chose prohibition, and we already knew it did not work. Oh, it worked just fine for corrupt politicians and prisons and law enforcement and bankers and businesses that launder the money and guys like Al Capone - but it did not work for American society. Prohibition was an abject failure.
You're an underage kid who wants a bottle of bourbon, so you go to the liquor store, and they card you and throw you out - or call the authorities. You ask someone going in to buy it for you, and most decent people will say, "get lost." There are regulations in place, and no good alternatives outside the liquor store. Your options are limited and relatively difficult.
Now, let's change the substance... The underage kid wants a bag of pot. There are no longer any regulations. Pot is illegal. While the liquor store owner cares about that kid to some extent, the corner drug dealer does not. He has no legal pressure on him to prevent that underage kid from buying his product. There are no regulations to make it difficult for that kid to get his bag of pot. The drug dealer is not going to ask for an ID. He's going to sell it, and tell the kid to let his friends know...
I don't necessarily agree with raising the age to 21 in order to vape nicotine, as it is said to be something like 96% safer than cigarettes, but the point is - we can. It's a legal regulated product and we can set up rules for obtaining it. Where are these rules for illegal drugs? We cannot control what the kids do when we cannot regulate it.
We were wise enough to end alcohol prohibition after suffering through the same sort of corruption and violence we see with our southern neighbors, but we clearly failed to learn from it, and we doubled down the second time around by invoking a solution already proven not to work. Not so bad perhaps for the corrupt cops and politicians and prison companies, etc. but very bad for the rest of us. Countless lives ruined, productivity lost, money wasted....
We have Democrats and Republicans fighting over our southern border, and neither party will acknowledge that we caused the problem we're having with illegal immigrants. We created the drug lords and cartels and corruption and violence, and the plight of poor, hard working people who simply want to escape to a place where they can raise their children decently. We did that. We are responsible. We cannot fix this problem until we admit that WE created it, but do you hear either party saying such things?
It's time to try another approach. Perhaps Portugal has something to say on the subject....
http://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/
Pat
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