Notifications

Clear all

As Heroin Use by Whites Soars, Parents Urge Gentler Drug War

LeglizHemp · 2015-10-30T17:27:46Z

i posted this because a very good friend of mine's son got caught up in this problem. i believe it only took a few months to happen. then he got busted last spring with 2-3 grams and is facing possession and possession with intent to deal. he is only 23. he is a guitar player and has had a band since he was 14. he was going to college learning engineering. i had hired him last year to let him learn manufacturing from the bottom up, but he quit so he could concentrate on school. within 4 months he got popped. now just this week a whole gang has been taken down and for some reason he is implicated with them, even his dad is confused about it. i am scared to death this poor kid will get the book thrown at him. i've told him soooooo many times about the dangers of hard drugs and loose women (he also knocked up some girl) and being in a rock and roll band. i'm also very angry. i wish i would have recognized more 10 months ago. anyhow, just thought i'd share a story. this can happen so fast.As Heroin Use by Whites Soars, Parents Urge Gentler Drug War By KATHARINE Q. SEELYEOCT. 30, 2015 NEWTON, N.H. — When Courtney Griffin was using heroin, she lied, disappeared and stole constantly from her parents to support her $400-a-day habit. Her family paid her debts, never filed a police report and kept her addiction secret — until she was found dead last year of an overdose. At Courtney’s funeral, they decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their bright, beautiful daughter, just 20, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually, she overdosed at her boyfriend’s grandmother’s house, where she died alone. “When I was a kid, junkies were the worst,” Doug Griffin, 63, Courtney’s father, recalled in their comfortable home here in southeastern New Hampshire. “I used to have an office in New York City. I saw them.” Noting that “junkies” is a word he would never use now, he said that these days, “they’re working right next to you and you don’t even know it. They’re in my daughter’s bedroom — they are my daughter.” When the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white. And the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease. “Because the demographic of people affected are more white, more middle class, these are parents who are empowered,” said Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, better known as the nation’s drug czar. “They know how to call a legislator, they know how to get angry with their insurance company, they know how to advocate. They have been so instrumental in changing the conversation.” Mr. Botticelli, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 26 years, speaks to some of these parents regularly. Their efforts also include lobbying statehouses, holding rallies in Washington and starting nonprofit organizations, making these mothers and fathers part of a growing backlash against the harsh tactics of traditional drug enforcement. These days, in rare bipartisan or even nonpartisan agreement, punishment is out and compassion is in. The presidential candidates of both parties are now talking about the drug epidemic, with Hillary Rodham Clinton hosting forums on the issue as Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina tell their own stories of loss while calling for more care and empathy. Last week, President Obama traveled to West Virginia, a mostly white state with high levels of overdoses, to discuss his $133 million proposal to expand access for drug treatment and prevention programs. The Justice Department is also preparing to release roughly 6,000 inmates from federal prisons as part of an effort to roll back the severe penalties issued to nonviolent drug dealers in decades past. And in one of the most striking shifts in this new era, some local police departments have stopped punishing many heroin users. In Gloucester, Mass., those who walk into the police station and ask for help, even if they are carrying drugs or needles, are no longer arrested. Instead, they are diverted to treatment, despite questions about the police departments’ unilateral authority to do so. It is an approach being replicated by three dozen other police departments around the country. “How these policies evolve in the first place, and the connection with race, seems very sta...

Page 2 / 2 Prev

Whipping Post

Last Post by alloak41 10 years ago

34 Posts

14 Users

0 Reactions

3,532 Views

RSS

gotdrumz

(@gotdrumz)

Posts: 958

Noble Member

The other side of the same coin....

The U.S.A has roughly 5% of the world's population.
Yet 85% of the opioid prescriptions written worldwide are in the U.S.A
Deaths by opioid and/or heroin overdose has surpassed car accidents in the U.S.A as the number one cause of accidental death.

The U.S.A has close to 25% of the world's prison population
Close to 47% percent of those are for drug related crimes.

They send people to prison for manufacturing methamphetamine & cultivating marijuana. How about the people making all the synthetic and semi-synthetic opioids ?

Posted : November 9, 2015 5:39 am

piacere

(@piacere)

Posts: 974

Prominent Member

I'm seeing the devastation up close and personal. My girlfriend is now into her fourth day of Suboxone withdrawal and she's living a wide awake nightmare. I'm trying to be as supportive as I can, but am frustrated because there is little I can do to comfort her. I'm doing what I can but it's hard to watch someone you love go through this.

she's going through it because she loves you too. Cool don't forget that.

I spent my entire adult life until the age of 38 either drunk or on coke or bangin' smack. After realizing that it wasn't only me that was being wrecked, it was the people who loved me, including my God, I quit everything and have been clean 21 years. It can happen and it will, I'm walking, talking proof.
Hang in there with her, sit, listen and just be there. Good on ya and God bless, I'll be praying for both of you.

Posted : November 9, 2015 6:05 am

Brendan

(@brendan)

Posts: 262

Reputable Member

I'm seeing the devastation up close and personal. My girlfriend is now into her fourth day of Suboxone withdrawal and she's living a wide awake nightmare. I'm trying to be as supportive as I can, but am frustrated because there is little I can do to comfort her. I'm doing what I can but it's hard to watch someone you love go through this.

Brutal. I'm sorry to hear about that. Hope she's hanging in there. And you too.

Posted : November 9, 2015 6:09 am

alloak41

(@alloak41)

Posts: 3169

Famed Member

Thanks so much for your kind words and support, guys. It means a lot to both of us. Hopefully the worst is in the rear view mirror....Hopefully. I'm really proud of her.

Posted : November 9, 2015 6:13 am

Page 2 / 2 Prev

75 Forums
15 K Topics
192.1 K Posts
9 Online
24.7 K Members

Forum Icons: Forum contains no unread posts Forum contains unread posts

Topic Icons: Not Replied Replied Active Hot Sticky Unapproved Solved Private Closed