EDITORIAL: Soft on crime means soft on drugs | Premium

When a deadly virus entered the United States and spread through the population, scientists rushed to develop life-saving vaccines. Meanwhile, another public health threat continues an upward trend of human misery and death. To this day, after having had drug problems throughout history, we cannot fix them with a vaccine.

Tuesday is International Drug Overdose Awareness Day and the international community has absolutely nothing to celebrate. The day commemorates a crisis and is intended to serve as a wake-up call for parents, teachers, doctors, counselors, law enforcement agencies and politicians of all political backgrounds.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control shows that drug overdose deaths hit a record high of 93,331 in 2020 – a 30% increase from 2019 and 20,000 more bodies. At the top of the nation, the number of fatal drug overdose deaths in Colorado rose nearly 40% from 2019 to 2020, based on federal data from the National Vital Statistics System.

“The main concern for all of us is that our neighbors will die of a treatable and preventable disease,” said Dr. Steve Delisi, Medical Director for Professional Education and Continuum Solutions at Hazelden Betty Ford, in July. “Although it may not affect you directly now, we’re talking about 21 million Americans who have addictions each year.”

As reported in a Gazette news story, fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine are the leading causes of accidental drug deaths.

However you look at the data – in cities and counties in Colorado and across the country – substance abuse is a growing epidemic.

In a way, this is more confusing than a disease floating invisibly through the air. The COVID-19 virus, for example, is something that nobody wants and nobody likes. Everyone tries to avoid it. Nations agree on the need and desire to kill it.

The drug death dilemma involves deadly substances that most victims intentionally ingest. You pay money to get it. You want it first. The substance quickly becomes something that a significant percentage of users develop physiological and / or psychological dependence on.

Friends, families, and co-workers of addicts quickly learn how difficult it is to help. Addicts tend to become irrational and unable to control their need for one or more addictive substances. Even those who want to quit too often fail before they avoid death.

On Tuesday we can hold candlelight reminders. Governments will read proclamations denouncing the epidemic. We will hear many anti-drug conversations from politicians across the political spectrum. The next day we will likely move on and continue to ignore the crisis.

Almost everyone knows the complexities of this nightmare because most people in the United States know or love an addict, alive or dead. Addiction is hell to the addict and all who matter to them.

We need more intervention in schools, homes, hospitals and clinics. We all need to pay more unbiased attention to the people in our lives and look for the first signs of substance abuse. We need to de-stigmatize drug abuse so that we can speak honestly with each other and try to find solutions.

From a public policy perspective, politicians, other policy makers, and philanthropic leaders should focus on increasing and improving treatment options for mental health and substance abuse. What’s more, they should focus on limiting what is available.

We as a society cannot neglect law enforcement while pretending that we care about this historic surge in drug abuse and related deaths.

If we fail the police, we will have more drugs and more tragic deaths. If we give in to waking up to reduce incarceration, we can expect more substance abuse and deaths. If we leave total strangers without control over the United States border, we can expect more substance abuse and drug-related deaths.

On Tuesday, we hear a cacophony of political platitudes assuring us how much politicians hate drugs, drug trafficking, the suppression of drug addiction, and the terrible suffering of those who have lost children, parents, friends, relatives, neighbors and colleagues in the drug death trend.

When the political class is talking about drugs this week, tell them to take action against crime. Almost 100% of the cases in which someone dies from a drug overdose means that multiple crimes have taken place without interference from the judicial system. It means that a criminal produced an illegal drug, a criminal illegally traded the drug, a criminal sold the drug illegally, a criminal bought the drug illegally, and someone illegally used the drug. A society that rejects law and order becomes a society of deadly chaos and injustice.

Illegal drugs are bad for society. Last year was a very bad year for law enforcement as left-wing popular movements openly demonized the police, disenfranchised them, decommissioned them and threatened their removal.

Let’s do more than talk about Drug Overdose Awareness Day. Our drug problem is a crime problem. Let’s turn the recent soft-on-crime movement into a fad that failed in record time, even faster than fake meat for would-be vegans. Let’s reverse this deadly trend of substance abuse. That means only one thing. Get tough with crime again no matter what some angry mobs have to say.

The magazine editor