LE Perspectives on Drug Abuse & Drug Policy in the US

[TSH]

I had a lot of family over the past few days, about 30 at my Christmas party. A couple of Relatives basically joked about smoking pot. And when I joked back that there were three cops in the room, I was basically laughed at (not in a good way) that they were all gonna get high later and no one could stop them. Just as nonchalantly as could be. Last year at my Christmas party, my niece brought her boyfriend and his cousin. Little shits went into my back yard and got high, came back in the house reeking and red eyes. I was pissed. Do what you want at your house, but that’s some disrespectful shit, to come to my house, knowing what I do, and pull that.

This lack of respect is part of the problem and in my experience completely explains the upside down thought pattern of drug users. Recently, I responded to a post from what appeared to be a defense attorney who was so out of touch with reality he thought a meth user going to jail was some sort of miscarriage of justice. I responded to his post pretty strongly, and normally I regret that type of thing. In that case, however, I can't respond strongly enough. That attorney's ethics, morals, or whatever, are so in the tank for the dregs of our society he thought someone being punished for a crime they committed was an injustice. I wondered (and still do) why someone like that spends any time on a message board dedicated to the use of firearms as a means of self-defense from - let's face it - his morally bankrupt clients. To me, that alone showed how much hypocrisy exists in his life, and unfortunately he is the rule, not the exception. Defense attorneys are an important part of the process, but that guy has clearly lost his way.

I have never been assigned to a purely narcotics based unit, but I was assigned to an intel unit that specialized in cartel activity, and I have absolutely no sympathy for dopers. Yeah, I know many people use because of personal demons, etc...I still don't care. I've seen coworkers dosed with fentanyl, I've been pricked with needles, I've been bitten by junkies - screw 'em. One of my siblings is a junkie, and it still hasn't softened me up. After all the theft, the divisions it has created in my family, and the nonsense I have dealt with I am over it. I have even tipped off co-workers so they could get an easy stat off my sibling, but they believe they'll offend me if they act on it despite my promises otherwise.

Ideally? I would accept the legalization of drugs if there were no second chances - as in, go ahead and get high at your house, but the moment you burg a house, commit a robbery, even steal from the tip jar at a fast food joint to support your habit, you are outside the protections of society. Long prison terms for any drug influenced crime, including petty (or petit, depending or where you are) theft. Blot them out so the rest of us don't have to worry about whether our car doors are locked every night. And treat people who want to protect junkies like the douchebags they are.

Edited: Grammar

[okie john]

It’s a gateway drug.

In my experience, weed dealers, especially the bigger ones, tend to stick to selling weed for the most part. I’ve had numerous weed dealers tell me over the years that they won’t sell any “hard” drugs, because they know if they only sell weed and get caught they’ll just get probation. They know if we get them selling meth or crack with any kind of weight, we’ll put them in federal prison.

Pretty much everyone that sells harder drugs are marijuana users.

Thanks for the insight.


Okie John

[AZgunguy]

How much of it is marijuana itself being a gateway drug, and how much weed dealers being gateway people, who tend to have access to harder drugs?


Okie John

Most users are polu users. They'll use meth in the morning instead of coffee for their pick me up and then use marijuana to smooth out the meth ride. Then they'll use something else to help them sleep at night. It's rare to find someone who only uses one drug these days, unless they're kids just getting started on their habit. And some dealers are known to give their marijuana customers a free shot of something to "try it out" knowing they'll become addicted to it as well. They look at it as expanding their clientele.

[Nephrology]

Our commonly abused drugs here tend to be opioids, cheap Mexican meth, and benzodiazepines. Opioids are complicated and I don't pretend to know the answer as to how to fix it, but we've got a massive problem out here. I don't think the crisis will go away unless and until we stop normalizing requiring a pill for every damn little thing. You hurt? It's normal to take a pill. Doctor doesn't think you rate it -- but hey, what does he know? After all, it's not like you're using drugs... People get dependent on it that way, and so begins the cycle. Or hey, maybe they just want to get fucked up and don't want to do "bad" drugs. Unless and until we as a society perceive crushing up an Oxy and putting it up your nose like we would view heroin or crack use, those "normal" people are going to keep doing it -- the psychological barrier to entry is low enough to overcome for most. Benzos? They're not as attention-grabbing (and thus, resource-attracting) as opioids because they don't kill as much, but I wouldn't be surprised if a quarter or more of my area's population was on alprazolam, diazepam, or clonazepam, and in my view they enter into it for the same reasons they do the opioids.

Do you have a sense of where most of the benzos are coming from? I am assuming they are mostly diverted from legitimate healthcare channels/prescribed users - are they ever brought across the border illegally (if you can say)?

I'm not saying it's right because it isn't (the obvious question being, why can't we just put them there in the first place?), but your prosecutors may well be working the game the best way they can under the circumstances -- particularly if they're dealing with a range I or low range II.

Do you mind explaining what range I/II means?

[Nephrology]

I also have a methadone clinic in my zone....and first thing in the mornings at that place is like Grand Central Station. The parking lot is literally overflowing with cars and the line to get in looks like a Disney ride. My street walkers/hookers...aren't working on cash much anymore. They give their arts/treasures away for pills now...and the guys doing the shopping are all too eager to do their transactions in that manner. It's apparently easier to slip an Oxy out from underneath the wife's nose than it is a twenty out of the ATM.

How would you change the way these clinics run or the way that this treatment is provided to mitigate the criminality that they seem to encourage/concentrate?

Also, to everyone: thanks for making this thread a success so far! Almost 3 full pages of really interesting posts and still no trainwreck in sight. Appreciate it!

[ssb]

Do you have a sense of where most of the benzos are coming from? I am assuming they are mostly diverted from legitimate healthcare channels/prescribed users - are they ever brought across the border illegally (if you can say)?

Diversion for street sales and doctor shopping for long-term users. Xanax is cheap and common for illicit sales.

Do you mind explaining what range I/II means?

Our state divides offenders into categories. Which category an offender is in determines the range of their sentence.

Sentencing ranges for categories of felonies:

Class A felony = 15-60 years
Class B felony = 8-30 years
Class C felony = 3-15 years
Class D felony = 2-12 years
Class E felony = 1-6 years

Range is calculated by the number and classification of prior felonies.

Ranges:

Range I = 30% release eligibility on 15-25 (A) - 8-12 (B) - 3-6 (C) - 2-4 (D) - 1-2 (E)
Range II = 35% release eligibility on 25-40 (A) - 12-20 (B) - 6-10 (C) - 4-8 (D) - 2-4 (E)
Range III = 45% release eligibility on 40-60 (A) - 20-30 (B) - 10-15 (C) - 8-12 (D) - 4-6 (E)
Range IV = 60% release eligibility on 60 (A) - 30 (B) - 15 (C) - 12 (D) - 6 (E)


Release eligibility = minimum period of time sentence must be served before parole. There is a mandatory kickout on sentences of two years or less for nonviolent offenses, so as an example somebody sentenced to two years prison as a Range I will be released after seven months, fifteen days. There's also the sentencing guidelines which presume eligibility for alternative sentencing - some sentence other than prison -- for convictions on Class E, Class D, and Class C felonies "in the absence of evidence to the contrary." Sentences of ten years are less are eligible for probation.

[lwt16]

How would you change the way these clinics run or the way that this treatment is provided to mitigate the criminality that they seem to encourage/concentrate?

The clinic in my zone has a reputation of giving away more hits per client than is allowed or normal. I have heard this from their own customers so it's all third hand but several folks have told me that as long as you have the cash (I think it was up to 15.00/dose), they would give you more. I have no idea if that is true or not.

If it is true, it hardly feels like it's treatment to me and smells more like they are counting on repeat customers to maximize profits. Again, I really don't know much about the treatment side of it and can only go by what I see from the outside. I do know that the director of the clinic is adamant about not wanting the police anywhere near the place as he has called and complained about traffic enforcement on the four lane street out front and has personally asked me to leave his parking lot in the past.

Here, folks on the way to the methadone clinic are notorious for their reckless driving. On the way home they drive like old people Sunday drivers. But on the way, we have had some real good wrecks and crazy driving. A few years back we had a real bad crash on the interstate and the offender left the scene. The vehicle info as well as the details of how bad this guy was driving kind of let me to believe that he was heading to a methadone clinic so I eased over to the one in my zone....just in case the vehicle pulled in there.

Our city clinic actually shares the same parking lot so I sat there and waited. About ten minutes into it, the director of the clinic came out and asked me what I was doing......in an unpleasant tone. I told him "bird watching" and started rolling the window back up. He knocked on the window and I again rolled it down. He said I was "scaring off his clients". I retorted with "You standing here next to my patrol car is scaring off all my birds."

He was glaring at me....I was looking at him with this blank stare.......and then I hit the power window button and my window went back up. He stormed off cussing and I continued to sit there. My phone rings....my Sergeant asked me what was going on, I filled him in on the details, sent a cell pic of where I was sitting (city property) and he called the guy back and told him to pound sand.

In the years since, I have gone to this same clinic for multiple overdoses in the parking lot and most recently, and overdose in the clinic. I get there and they have narcan'd a girl back from the brink, and she is refusing to go to the hospital. The clinic director is basically asking me to MAKE her go to the hospital. I ask the medics what they are going to do and they reply that they aren't able to make her go to the hospital as she has answered the three questions and no doctor is going to order them to bring her. They do, however, need her info so that they can check all the boxes on their liability protocol....and she is refusing to give that up.

So now, everyone is looking at me. The girl is telling me to go copulate myself and she isn't telling me crap. I know that due to her brink of death experience, our jail ain't even going to come close to taking her if I cuff her.

But old lwt16 notices she is sitting on a purse....so I go over....and tell her to give me the purse so I can check it for weapons. "NO!!! GO PLEASURE YOURSELF!" was her response. She was about to say something else but at that moment she was flying backwards into the loving arms of the medics as I had grabbed that purse and put 230 pounds of grabbus on it and she came along for the ride.

She's now whining and I find her ID in her purse. I hand it to the medics so that they can complete their paperwork and then put it back in her purse. I lovingly lay it at her feet, announce that I have grown tired of the call, and I turn around and leave. The director asks me what he is supposed to do with her. I offer him a trespass warning case.....he declines.....so I and the medics...and the fire guys....we all leave.

I can't make someone go to the hospital, I can't fix drama nor stupidity, and I've grown old and cranky. This clinic seems to put profit well head of patient care and truly weaning them off narcotics. Again, no facts.......just what I've seen, and I truly hope that they are doing what's best for their clients. I am sure that there are some people that go there that are success stories and cause very little trouble and I don't see that aspect of it. And all of this may vary greatly once you get out of my sin/crime soaked zone.

Regards.

[Baldanders]

Most users are polu users. They'll use meth in the morning instead of coffee for their pick me up and then use marijuana to smooth out the meth ride. Then they'll use something else to help them sleep at night. It's rare to find someone who only uses one drug these days, unless they're kids just getting started on their habit. And some dealers are known to give their marijuana customers a free shot of something to "try it out" knowing they'll become addicted to it as well. They look at it as expanding their clientele.

I was nodding along with this post until the end, which sounds like something out of "Reefer Madness."

Anyone got a link to a verifiable story about any dealer giving away free drugs, ever?

Three questions for LEOs:

1) Are we headed for a "benzo wave," much like the current opioid epidemic?

2) Have you seen any evidence that the "opioid wave" has crested?

3) Do you feel like big campaigns against specifc drugs/classes of drugs (opioids now, crack in the 90s, methamphetamine in the 2000s) actually work against a more comprehensive approach that would deal with the polysubstance abuse that seems to be the true reality? Or should we always be most focused on whatever drug seems to be "biggest" at the time? Or am I just confused ?

OK, really five questions.

[willie]

I too have been coasting through the thread and ended with the same opinion, which is drug addicts seem to be comfortable with their status
quo. Though I support funding treatment programs, I have small faith in their effectiveness. If run by nurses with a couple doctors on call from 150 miles away and operated like some pain clinics, these programs help those who own them and few others.

[TC215]

I was nodding along with this post until the end, which sounds like something out of "Reefer Madness."

Anyone got a link to a verifiable story about any dealer giving away free drugs, ever?

Three questions for LEOs:

1) Are we headed for a "benzo wave," much like the current opioid epidemic?

2) Have you seen any evidence that the "opioid wave" has crested?

3) Do you feel like big campaigns against specifc drugs/classes of drugs (opioids now, crack in the 90s, methamphetamine in the 2000s) actually work against a more comprehensive approach that would deal with the polysubstance abuse that seems to be the true reality? Or should we always be most focused on whatever drug seems to be "biggest" at the time? Or am I just confused ?

OK, really five questions.

I don’t have a “link to a verifiable story”, but we occasionally get small amounts of drugs for free from dealers as a sample. Generally this has been with heroin.

No to questions 1 and 2. As far as number 3, we need multiple strategies, but of course you have to stay focus and target whatever is biggest at the time. That doesn’t mean other drugs aren’t being targeted.