Ward: Drug ‘war’ is over in rural areas
The so-called war on drugs is over. Heroin has won.
No. That doesn’t mean heroin and other drug users can indulge their addiction with impunity. It means the problem is so big, so overwhelming, so pervasive that police officers are unable to make headway in a torrent of drugs, users and dealers.
Most of us picture heroin addicts as urban dwellers, unemployed, near the end of the line and living next to a Dumpster in some alley with a needle in their arm. That might be true for some who’ve hit rock bottom, but they are just as likely to be a white, 32-year-old male or female and living in a small town or rural region.
“That’s us,” Randolph County Sheriff Ken Hendrickson told a crowd at a forum hosted in June by the Indiana Youth Institute in Winchester. He knows what the drug culture is like, what drugs can do to the users and the families who must cope with the fallout of drug use. He lived and worked undercover as a narcotics officer before he was elected sheriff. “I looked so bad when I was working … I couldn’t go to church. I couldn’t go to the local Walmart because I looked that bad.”
Maybe rural drug users can hold down a job, for awhile, or maybe they just bounce from house to house — with “friends” — in constant pursuit of their next high. They’ll turn to stealing or dealing to get the money to buy drugs.
Hendrickson speaks of the drug problem in rural settings. It’s taken years to get people to notice, he said. “Until the drug affects you and your family, you don’t care. But when it hits home and it’s your child — somebody in your family — you start to pay attention.”
The drug problem is getting noticed now, after a slow start.
Reach All Randolph County, formed about a year ago, so opioid and other drug users, including heroin, and others can seek help and start the treatment and recovery process.
Randolph County is not alone in the drug epidemic. Just about every corner of the nation is seeing more drug use. People who were prescribed opioid-based pain medications for chronic pain or to recover from surgeries found they couldn’t cope without the meds. When their supply dried up, they turned to heroin or other drugs, which are often cheaper than prescription medications.
And the problem is out of control.
Hendrickson said it’s a simple economic rule of supply and demand. “And the sad thing about heroin, they (users) love it. They hate the addiction, but they love the feel and the high.”
And that addiction can be powerful, and it prompts desperate measures.
For example, Randolph Superior Court Judge Pete Haviza said he’s had mothers in his court pleading with him to give their child a higher bond after an arrest in order to keep him or her away from the drugs and drug users. He said he takes their request under consideration, but he’s obligated to set reasonable bond limits.
In effect, putting addicts behind bars is becoming a treatment option where medical alternatives are few or non-existent. And if they do exist, often there’s a wait to receive treatment. Any officer will tell you it’s impossible to arrest your way out of the problem.
“We’re trying to manage the (drug problem) up here, Hendrickson said. “We’re not going to stop it.” He displayed a map of the U.S. showing how drugs flow from Mexico. “You think me and 17 officers from the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department’s gonna stop it? When it went through 3,000 police officers before it even got here? We’re not going to stop it, but we can try to manage it as best we can.”
One part of managing the problem is Narcan, a drug that blocks the effects of opioids in overdose victims. Hendrickson credited Narcan with cutting the overdose deaths in the county from 16 last year to just three as of mid-June. “Narcan has been the life saver of Randolph County. No doubt in my mind.” Hendrickson said.
If it’s administered in time. All public safety departments in the county have access to it, but help can be a long way off in some parts of the county because of its size.
So law enforcement, firefighters and EMTs have become the front line in drug treatment.
Until rural counties such as Randolph can scrounge the resources and money to provide treatment options, there’s little that can be done. A “drug court” would help free up other courts to deal with other criminal cases, which can sometimes stretch to years of court activity because of the backlog. Paying for such a court is another matter.
And even if such a court could be formed, many addicts return to using, despite treatment. One idea worth trying might be to follow the lead in Wayne County and start a pretrial-diversion program for drug users — get approved treatment or go to jail. Successful treatment results in a dismissed case. Failure to complete treatment means prosecution.
It’s a carrot-and-stick approach, but it might steer some people into treatment who would otherwise avoid it, and it might clear court dockets.
That’s a lot of “mights” but what alternative is there? If anyone has ideas, let’s hear them.
Managing the problem is not solving it.
Jeff Ward is a news columnist for The Star Press. Email him at jward@muncie.gannett.com with tips, suggestions or story ideas
Filed under: General Problems
Q: Has heroin “won” in certain areas? A: In my opinion not only heroin , but a dangerous combination of a synthetic drug mixed with the powerful drug fentenyl .