Blight

At my church we have a ministry that is called Celebrate Recovery. We started it a few years ago and it has been quite successful. So much so that the dire need is becoming more widely recognized and a couple of other churches in the area have their own programs. It is designed to help those who are addicted to drugs or any other destructive behavior and we have seen quite a few lives changed and people brought back from the brink to lead useful and purposeful lives. Families have been reunited and strengthened. The CR program, as we call it, is sometimes used as a diversion for people facing jail time for violations of the law.

This is one of the major reasons that I began attending this church because it is my strongly held belief that churches must be relevant to the world in which they exist. There is a saying that goes something like this: The church is so holy it is of no earthly good.” I believe we must avoid this.

But even the court system can see that we can't imprison our way out of the epidemic of drug abuse that we are experiencing. Some people think we can just keep building prisons to house these people when we already imprison people at a higher rate than any other country in the world. We have turned prisons into a growth industry for private enterprise whose objective is to keep the beds filled and who have no interest in curbing incarceration. How much sense does that make? We have poured billions into the War on Drugs with no discernible effect. Can it be that there may be a better way to use the taxpayer's dollars to curb this blight? I believe there is.

We, as a nation, have fallen victim to the yearning for an easy answer, one that is just filled with “common sense” and plain for all to see. Everywhere I go, if I engage in conversation with a person, it is rare to find a family that has not been touched and scarred by the illegal use of drugs. It doesn't matter if they are prescription or non-prescription, the result to the user is addiction, downward mobility and, eventually, either death or incarceration. Once the downward trend begins that person ceases to be an asset to society and becomes a drain on the resources of that society. Other than the personal tragedy that is what we as a nation must be concerned with. How can we be concerned in a way that will make that person once again productive and no longer a burden?

The epidemic of drug use defies the usual prescription of deterrence through harsh sentencing. That approach only leads to increased money to useless enforcement and imprisonment. An addict cares not one whit about consequences. He is not going to say “I'm not gonna shoot that smack 'cause it will land me in prison.” He's going to say “where can I get it and how soon.” People who have never seen the deadly progression of this disease find it almost impossible to understand but more and more of us are becoming intimately acquainted with it.

Recently our state passed a new drug law that made it more difficult for illegal users to gain access to prescription drugs. It has been effective but has not resulted in fewer people using narcotics but, instead, has led to an increased use of heroin. Heroin is a street drug that is sold in varying degrees of purity and thus is more likely to be overdosed on than a prescription drug for which the purity is known. Overdose deaths from heroin are on a record pace and promise to eclipse the overdose deaths from prescription drugs. The law of unintended consequences at work. Now it is more expensive and difficult for legal users of drugs to access them and cheaper and more dangerous for the illegal user. Could it be that our whole approach to the drug problem is wrong? Could it be that, like many things, the solution is one that requires “uncommon sense” to discern?

Of course it is. We are really fond of the ten second sound byte, the meme, the short but sweet dangling of simple solutions in our faces. Get this. If if were simple it would be done by now. Even the judicial establishment is beginning to see the fallacy of ponderous imprisonment and turning to whatever other alternatives may be available. It is time for the law enforcement establishment to do the same thing. It is time for the legislative establishment to do the same thing.

It is a well known and proven fact that drug abuse goes hand in hand with poverty and lack of economic opportunity. It is far more rare for a person who has a bright future ahead of him (or her) to succumb to the siren call. Preparation for an addiction free life must begin very early in life. Parenting is critical and all too often, lacking. Education opens a world that is much more attractive than the world of addiction. Social structures in school, church or communities that provide companionship and compassion keep the person from becoming isolated and turning to drugs to ease the hurt of the loneliness. Effective social programs that take people who need help and nurture them back to productivity are a priority but one that has suffered under the vast budget cuts to social programs. If we would use the vast sums squandered on imprisonment and law enforcement we would find those social programs to be far more economically desirable.

The solutions are well known but will deprive us of our holier than thou attitude and force on us the need to peer beneath the surface. They will demand that we examine policy and not fall prey to the shiny face with the neat answer. They will require a better us. We can't continue to slough this task off to prisons and law enforcement.

My Take is that people don't like complicated solutions. They would rather live in the dream world of trite aphorisms and neat answers. Sorry.