Drug Court – Opiate Nation

(Translation into most langugages at tab to the right.)

Recently, I connected with Christina Dent, Founder & President of End It For Good. The mutual connection came through a drug advocacy organization in Australia where they also promote options other than incarceration for drug addiction.

The End It For Good website is a treasure worth exploring (see below). Although Christina has been mainly focused on her home state of Mississippi, they are now expanding and reaching out across the United States. Their website states:

Our goal is a future where fewer people are harmed by drugs. To get there, we need to shift away from a criminal justice approach and towards a health-centered approach to drug production, distribution, and consumption. As a 501(c)(3), we educate citizens, advocates, and policymakers to elevate solutions that prioritize life, health, strong families, and safe communities. This is the path to a world where more people have an opportunity to thrive.

In her TED Talk, Christina shares her learning journey about the destructive impact of a criminal justice approach to drugs and addiction, as well as the mounting evidence that a health-centered approach would be much more effective.

And Christina has written an award winning and very favorably reviewed book:

CURIOUS: A Foster Mom’s Discovery of an Unexpected Solution to Drugs and Addiction. It gives a vision for unexpected solutions that save lives, heal families, and promote public safety.

The reason I used this particular statue for the blog graphic this month relates perfectly to this subject. Justice & Mercy was designed by sculptor L. Glynn Acree III and stands in front of the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Justice is blindfolded and the scales she holds are perfectly balanced. The angel, Mercy, is whispering in Justice’s ear. An important reminder that in order for justice to be true and impartial, mercy and kindness must temper her decisions – because as humans, we are all imperfect and fail in many ways.

End It For Good

I would fear for his life more than ever.

“Drug Overdoses Soaring: Suspected overdoses nationally jumped 18% in March, 29% in April, 42% in May, data from ambulance teams, hospitals, and police shows.”

As a young man in America who wanted more than anything to be free of his deadly heroin addiction, how would he be weathering the Covid-19 pandemic?

“The drug-overdose-and-death epidemic already was hurting communities before COVID-19, but during the pandemic there have been reports from every region of the country on spikes in opioid-related calls to first responders, visits to emergency rooms, fentanyl and tainted-drug-related overdoses. There also have been challenges to accessing sterile needle and syringe and exchange services.”