Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is introducing legislation that would stiffen penalties for traffickers in the deadly drug, Fentanyl. In doing so he has shed new light on a drug that killed more than 20,000 people in 2016. That’s more deaths than either heroin or cocaine.
Sen. Cotton’s proposal for stiffer sentences is welcome and should be implemented, but it is not enough. We should also take it further with the formation of a local community organization which has the ultimate goal of providing affordable and comprehensive treatment for those struggling with these powerful drugs.
Little Rock would be a good place to begin. It has the resources and a history of dealing with alcohol addiction that goes back almost 80 years.
Fentanyl is an evil and powerful drug. It is 100 times more powerful than morphine, and a hundred pounds of it would be enough to kill as many as 18 million people.
A ton of Fentanyl, the numbers suggest, could wipe us all out. I don’t see that happening, but it does help focus the mind.
Sen. Cotton’s proposed legislation calls for higher penalties including the death penalty for Fentanyl dealers. It’s a good beginning, but it focuses on interrupting the supply by putting more drug dealers in prison with longer sentences.Ultimately, for lasting effect, we seek to dry up the demand.
As for Senator Cotton’s proposal, a conviction involving 20 grams of a substance containing Fentanyl would carry a sentence of 10 plus years (the current tipping point amount is 400 grams).
For 5 grams of Fentanyl the sentence would be 10 plus years (the current tipping point amount is 100 grams).
For 0.5 grams the sentence would be five plus years (the current tipping point amount is 10 grams).
Earlier this month during a speech at Manchester, N.H. President Donald Trump described the harm caused by Fentanyl traffickers and advocated executing the worst offenders.
“With help from the U.S. Department of Justice,” Trump said, “we will be focusing on the penalty that I talked about previously for the big pushers, the ones that are really killing so many people, and that penalty is going to be the death penalty.
“Countries that execute drug dealers don’t have drug problems” President Trump added.
When it comes to Fentanyl there is one bright spot. If you can administer the antidote, Narcan, soon enough you can save lives. Narcan is a medication used to reverse a drug overdose.
Chris Palmer, a Little Rock lawyer, a member of the One Day at a Time board of directors and my youngest son, has taken it upon himself to provide Narcan, a nasal spray, to those who have overdosed on Fentanyl, and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette published a story about Chris’s project last week. Here it is, verbatim:
Headline: “He’s like a guardian angel without the wings.
“There are times in your life you’re brought to your knees,” says Chris Palmer.
“Palmer has asked friends and business owners that he knows about donating to the Little Rock Police Department’s (LRPD) NARCAN fund.
“It was kind of a healing process for me,” he says.
Since October of 2017, Palmer has collected more than $13,000 in donations so LRPD can purchase 224 NARCAN kits, adding to the 100 officers already had.
“I knew it would help somebody,” he says.
Palmer’s passion was fueled mainly by his 23-year-old son, now two years sober from an opioid addiction.
“He raised his hand and said he had a problem,” says Palmer. “If anybody tells you your child is in danger or he has a 50 percent chance of survival then things start to kick in.”
Little Rock Police Assistant Chief Alice Fulk said the generous donation had equipped 324 officers with NARCAN.
Fulk presented Palmer with the Citizen’s Achievement Award today, stating that “Mr. Palmer has facilitated over $13,000 in donations to the LRPD that has been used to purchase NARCAN for our patrol officers. Thank you Mr. Palmer!”
Fulk said since mid-November, 26 lives had been saved because of the department’s drug-reversal medication.
“It definitely brought them back for a second time,” Fulk said
Palmer said he prays that more guardian angels will step up so police have the tools they need to save more lives.
“The great thing about these second chances is you don’t pick who it is, how much money they have, where they’re from, the color of their skin, or anything,” he said.
ODAT’s proposal
Our proposed One Day at a Time program is being developed with input from Chris Palmer and other board members to help people overcome their addictions with a program based on six major components:
Mental health
In his book, “A Common Struggle. A personal journey though the past and future of mental illness and addiction,” Patrick Kennedy describes his own harrowing struggle with drugs and alcohol, and he advocates for more aggressive treatment of both mental illness and addictions. He makes a good case.
Patrick, 63, is the first Kennedy to really talk openly about the mental illness, addictions and tragedies that have plagued him and his family, but he is not the first to propose reforms that would address the nation’s drug problem. He reminds us that when his uncle John F. Kennedy was President, he sponsored the Community Health Act of 1963, which was designed to provide “mental health prevention, diagnosis and treatment services to individuals residing in the community.
Addiction treatment
Dr. John F. Kelly, an associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and associate director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, spoke at a convention several years ago about his support for Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-Step programs.
“Twelve step meetings,” Dr Kelly said, “work as well as professional interventions and have the advantage of being available in most communities. Meetings are free, there’s no paperwork, and patients can attend as intensively and as long as they desire. Also, meetings are available at high-risk times.” (At the cocktail hour, for example, or at daybreak when hangovers raise the ante.)
AA is the single most popular recovery program of all, Dr. Kelly noted. It attracts about 2.4 million followers a year.
“Alcoholics have a specific problem: They drink too much. But instead of addressing that problem with the psychic equivalent of a precision guidance missal, Bill Wilson founder of AA, set out to change people’s whole identities,” author David Brooks noted in a recent column.
AA co-founder Bill Wilson, Brooks said, “sought to arouse people’s spiritual aspirations rather than just appealing to rational cost-benefit analysis. AA would help people achieve broad spiritual awakenings, and abstinence from alcohol would be a byproduct of that larger salvation.
Opioids
With regard to today’s opioid epidemic, an article by Christopher Caldwell in the April issue of “First things” magazine provides a glimpse of what communities are up against.
Caldwell’s article focuses in part on the powerful drugs that have emerged combined with sophisticated delivery systems and ruthless dealers, and he calls for a response by the citizens of individual communities that is aggressive, informed and focused.
“Fifty two thousand Americans died of opioid over-doses in 2015,” Caldwell tells us, about four times as many as died from gun homicides and half again as many as died in car accidents.
Faith
Individual Evangelical Christian protestant churches have become significantly more engaged in addressing drug addiction building on its long standing Salvation Army and Union Rescue Mission programs which go back more than 100 years.
In his book, The Purpose Driven Life, a 25-million-copy best seller urging people to follow God’s plan for them and to serve others, Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church, provided the spiritual underpinnings for his world-wide Celebrate Recovery ministry founded nearly 25 years ago. It is now offered by thousands of churches worldwide.
Warren says, “I believe great churches are built on broken people, willing to abandon pride, pretensions, and self-righteous posturing. When we reach the end of our rope and give up our self-sufficiency, that is when God moves into our lives with healing and growth.
Physical fitness
Exercise is vital. Joining a club can help prescribe individual exercise plans and has the added benefit of doing it with others and making friends. Verify your plan with a physician.
Jobs
Two years ago, Joseph Hooley, Chief Executive officer of Boston’s State Street Corporation launched Boston Workforce Investment Network (Boston WINs) to strengthen the city’s workforce by teaching disadvantaged young men and women the ways of business.
Through his work with local philanthropy, as reported in the Harvard Business Review, particularly as an active supporter and a board member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, Hooley became convinced that if he could help fix just one problem in the world, it would be urban education.
Hooley, who joined State Street in 1986, launched WINs in June 2015 and committed to investing $20 million and hiring 1,000 graduates of urban schools over the next four years.
Into action
Our focus now is on reducing levels of addiction in the nation beginning with families in the neighborhoods of individual communities. We have begun the process by providing information to individual citizens on how to get well. Ultimately, we will help them take the necessary steps to do it.
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