...Is Not A Crime
(If you're wondering why this is here.)
"These people, they go into jail, they're not always violent, most of the time, they're not violent drug offenders. By the time they get out of there, they had to learn how to adapt in prison. Rather than being treated, they're learning how to adapt where we throw them in like animals, and then they get out and now they've become violent, or they're more aggressive, because that's what they've learned, that's what we've taught them. Our tax dollars at work. We need to change that."
This week, Dale took on the opioid addiction live from Pittsburgh and was joined by Chris Dreisbach the CEO of Blueprints for Addiction Recovery. Dale believes in order to solve the problem of opioid addiction, we need to actually look at the root of the problem, stop treating symptoms and allow those treatments to come from the free market and in turn save money. In the last 40 years we've spent over $1 trillion dollars on the War on Drugs and our incarceration rate has increased 800% in that same time period. Certainly, that doesn't look like the War on Drugs is working. From 2016-2018, 80% of Pennsylvania counties exceeded the national average for opioid overdose deaths: Pennsylvania is one of the hardest hit states by the opiod epidemic, but all is not lost.
During that two year span, fourteen counties bucked the trend and actually decreased in overdose deaths, and Dale thinks we should look to those counties for leadership and ideas about how to combat the problem of opioids. Let's look at Bethlehem. The police department in Bethlehem has set up a program that allows users looking for help to surrender their paraphernalia and will in turn avoid jail time by entering into treatment. We need more police departments to opt out of the War on Drugs, and help people obtain treatment. When police departments nullify the War on Drugs it begins destigmatizing drug users which in turn makes admitting a drug use problem and the seeking of treatment that much easier.
If you weren't lucky enough to get to see Dale speak at this past weekends Addiction is Not a Crime tour in Pittsburgh, you're in luck! Chris Dreisbach's introduction of Dale and Dale's speech were Facebook lived!
One of the problems with any addiction, is that when someone asks for help they are not often met with open arms and excitement over the start of a new chapter. Rather, they are met with ostracization and can lose jobs, children, and even face jail time.
This is an issue close to Dale as his single mother worked hard to provide and raise her six boys through alcohol and cocaine addiction. Overtime, the drugs began to come before Dale and his brothers to the point that 19 year old Dale sought custody of his younger siblings. Yes, Dale's mother could have asked for help and sought treatment, and maybe she would have escaped the full throes that her addiction would become, but what would have been the repercussions of that? There's a pretty good chance she would have lost her job and in turn would have had an even harder time providing for her six boys, and if the drug addiction wasn't enough, the lack of a job would certainly have sent CPS to the Kerns' residence and there is little chance the six boys would have been kept together.
Of course there are people that think locking up drug users like animals will starve their addiction and sober them up; unfortunately, in today's system of for-profit prisons, this is a faulty belief. Dale shared another story of his cousin who had a heroin addiction and was sent to prison, where he subsequently received heroin from the prison guards and actually suffered an overdose while he was in prison: evidence that caging people does not work.
Dale told of his cousin who recently went to prison for heroin use. Upon her release, it was necessitated that she get a job, but she didn't have a birth certificate, social security card, driver's license or any real credentials. She wanted to get into a treatment center, but would not be admitted unless she tested positive. Of course, the only way to test positive was to go out and use, which she did, subsequently overdosing, and ending up back in jail.
Why is it so hard to seek treatment? Why is it so hard to receive treatment? Why must something drastic happen for the government to step in and force someone into treatment? Why is the government involved in the first place? Can the government realistically decide the duration and types of treatment that would work best for any given individual? Certainly not, each individual has different needs and circumstances. We must allow the people to decide their own treatment. We need to let treatment be a voluntary contract agreed upon between an addict and their doctor. Dale's Addiction is Not a Crime bill does just that.
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Remember, Dale Kerns, a New Way for PA!
