Mental Health – Opiate Nation

KRATOM: Another monkey on your back?

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

It’s a new year around the world. Most developed and industrialized nations have similar hopes and concerns. Yet when one travels outside of the USA, we find some striking differences in how other leading countries in the world govern themselves. This is obvious in one particular area – when it comes to what substances are legal, allowed, or illegal.

Kratom is a good example. It is a Thai traditional medicine. The plant is in the coffee family and when used traditionally – i.e., chewed or dried for tea – it can produce mild stimulant or sedative-like effects. (1) But in the last decade, people driven by greed and profit (it is a billion-dollar industry), have once again figured out how to chemically super-charge the derivatives in Kratom in order to create a market with a highly addictive substance in the guise of a “natural” product sold at convenience stores and gas stations in all but six states in the USA. These concentrated derivatives contain 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), a powerful psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in tiny amounts in kratom. 7-OH affects the same receptors in the brain as morphine and heroin – thus, the same effects that people seek in those drugs. And in these new potencies, kratom has the same strong potential for addiction.

A recent FDA report states that “7-OH is a naturally occurring substance in the kratom plant (Mitragyna speciosa), but only a minor constituent that comprises less than 2% of the total alkaloid content in natural kratom leaves. However, 7-OH demonstrates substantially greater mu-opioid receptor potency than kratom’s primary alkaloid constituent mitragynine, as well as other classical opioids such as morphine.” (2) There are too many articles documenting its opioid-like properties and side effects that I cannot cite them here, but the facts are easy to find, including its addictive qualities and associated deaths. I’ve given links to a few articles that are easy to read at the end of the blog.

Australia criminalized possession, supply, manufacture, production, growth or importation in 2005 and classified it as a Schedule 9 prohibited substance in all states and territories. It cannot be legally sold in health food stores or online in Australia. The only exceptions are for approved medical or scientific research, analytical, teaching, or training purposes, which require specific government authorization and licenses. (3)

What is interesting and frustrating is to see how one country can quicklky and efficiently act in agreement about a public health threat and create legislation that protects its citizens while it also leaves room for ongoing scientific investigation. Think about how many decades it has taken for the USA to come up with a similar approach for cannabis. It is currently illegal under federal law as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, but 40 of our 50 states have legalized it for medical use and 24 for recreational use. Schedule 1 classification places it alongside drugs like heroin and LSD. It can be scientifically studied legally, but there are complex federal regulations that require approval from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and the FDA. We just can’t seem to get our congress to simply function like other countries in a timely manner.

Kratom is a perfect example. In 2016 the DEA intended to put 7-OH into the Schedule 1 category, which would have banned it. But there was pushback from the public and congress who argued that it had potential for chronic pain relief or even opioid withdrawal. So why couldn’t we make it illegal or at least regulate it while also allowing for scientific research? Why?

In the meantime, young people and adults who listen to friends or influencers are being lured once again into experimenting with something that will sooner or later prove to be a monkey on their back. If there are young people in your life who are curious about any substance, take the time to do the homework and discuss the facts with them. And if you see “Natural” or “Organic” Kratom being sold at your local gas station or convenience store, let the owners know you will not be shopping there until they remove these addictive products from their shelves.

NOTE: Thank you to Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell for her very informative article (5)

1. Not all kratom is equal: The important distinction between native leaf and extract products (2023)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.16366
2. https://www.fda.gov/media/187899/download#:~:text=In%20vitro%20studies%20reveal%207,fentanyl%2C%20oxycodone%2C%20and%20hydrocodone.
3. Australian drug laws
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=db6f3ba8-a2c5-4fb2-89b8-ab93d1b09b23
4. Following “the Roots” of Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa): The Evolution of an Enhancer from a Traditional Use to Increase Work and Productivity in Southeast Asia to a Recreational Psychoactive Drug in Western Countries (2015)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2015/968786
5. The Legal Drug That Could Fuel the Next Addiction Epidemic
A dangerous substance masked as “natural” is lurking on convenience store shelves. (2025)
https://katiecouric.com/health/wellness/is-kratom-dangerous-addiction-overdose/

Just Normal

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

Eleven years ago today my husband John and I woke up thinking it would be just another normal, hot August Saturday morning. But when the sheriff knocked on the door, the day – and our lives – were no longer normal. It is surprising how quickly our lives can go from normal to abnormal.

I was sorting through some files and found a drawing that our son, John Leif (JL) had done when he was around nine. It was obviously of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” but it was also obviously done by a normal nine-year-old – not an artistic prodigy. And it made me think about how JL was just like any other normal kid growing up in middle-class America in the 1990’s-2000’s. He learned to ride a 2-wheel bike at around five, he played with Lego’s, he took swimming lessons, he loved monster trucks and lasagna and macaroni & cheese with ketchup. But something so abnormal for normal young teenagers ended up ruining some of what should have been the best years of his life and ultimately taking his life – and the lives of many of his friends and hundreds of thousand other normal kids.

What was abnormal was the criminal promotion and availability of highly addictive medicine to young kids by Purdue Pharmaceuticals and the Sackler family. Never before had American kids been exposed to legal drugs (that were promoted as “non-addictive”) that they experimented with as if they were simply trying a joint. And the results were the devastation of the Opioid Epidemic. Which is not over, especially for the once normal kids who are still alive and living with the cancer of addictions. We see many of them on the street corners and under bridges, living from hand to mouth, barely surviving, living anything but a normal life.

Sadly, seeing these shells of once normal kids has become a “new normal” as our society doesn’t seem to agree on how to best provide lasting recovery options with a continuum of care – or whether we even should. In my last Substack podcast and article with special guest Sam Quinones we discuss some ideas from his book “The Least of Us” for how to help get these once normal kids from normal families the help they need to try to return to something like a normal life. (1) Let’s not forget that those addicted people were once normal kids.

JudeDiMeglioTrang1.substack.com

Not the Time to Rest on Our Laurels

(Translation into most languages a tab to the right.)

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.

― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

In ancient Greece, when athletes competed and won, they were given a laurel wreath as a crown to show off their success. The idiom “resting on one’s laurels” refers to being content with our past accomplishments and not working towards any further improvement. Not exerting any effort and becoming complacent.

I am concerned that we might become complacent after hearing the recent encouraging news from the CDC that drug-related deaths among young people under the age of 35 are finally declining. This after more than two decades of year after year grim news about young people dying from opioid overdoses. And especially from the last 10 years from fentanyl. “Provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate there were an estimated 80,391 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2024—a decrease of 26.9% from the 110,037 deaths estimated in 2023.Annual drug overdose deaths are projected to reach their lowest level since 2019.” (1)

NPR’s Morning Edition discussed the possible reasons for this decline. (2) In Gen Z young people, the fear of overdose has caused a change in what they experiment with as opposed to Millennials like my son. When he was at the age of experimentation in middle school, highly addictive prescription opioids were the drug of choice. Now, Gen Z experimentation is mostly with weed and psychoactive drugs which normally won’t cause death, although they can be laced with fentanyl which may lead to a new and more deadly addiction. But those age 35 and older who are still living desperate lives addicted to ever-stronger synthetic opioids and/or meth are still dying from overdoses.

And then there is Narcan, the opioid overdose reversal medication that is now widely available and is attributed with saving thousands of lives. Parents and advocates have been working for a decade to make it easy to obtain and administer. But it is not the silver bullet many people hail it as. For opioid addicted people, many have been brought back from overdose only to continue using drugs and thinking they have a quick solution to their long-term problem. But repeated overdoses are causing serious brain injuries from oxygen deprivation, as Sam Quinones writes (3).

Author of Dreamland: True Tales of America’s Opiate Epidemic (2015) and The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth (2022), Sam says, “By leaving people on the street to suffer more overdoses, believing that with Narcan they’ll be revived and return to ‘normal,’ we are creating a population of people less able to make rational decisions, more given to erratic behavior, and more at the mercy of the street and its trauma…(Narcan) has great benefits, but also serious limits, particularly in a time of fentanyl and meth, and particularly when it is used virtually without any other tool.”

What’s the answer to this blight that was unleashed on our young people?

Sam continues, “After reporting on this for more than a decade, I believe the solution must start with getting people off those lethal streets and — crucially — into places they cannot leave when the drugs insist that they must. That way, their brains will have a fighting chance to heal. When that happens, readiness for treatment is far more likely to emerge than it will on those streets, where drugs and brain injury so easily conspire and lead to death.”

I encourage you to read Sam’s article for other great insights and pass it along to others. We need to be informed with a perspective gained from all the facts and then work for comprehensive reforms in policies and health care.

U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease Almost 27% in 2024. May 14, 2025

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2025/20250514.htm

2. Drug deaths plummet among young Americans as fentanyl carnage eases.

Morning Edition June 10, 2025

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/nx-s1-5414476/fentanyl-gen-z-drug-overdose-deaths?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20250610&utm_term=10186449&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=6355467&orgid=201&uniquet=CYeV6IcF5gy8kS5Vlimppw&utm_att1=

3. Sam Quinones. The Limits of Narcan Alone. June 04, 2025.

https://samquinones.substack.com/p/the-limits-of-narcan-alone

An Entire Generation

Translation into most languages at tab to the right.

A generation is usually considered the years during which children are born, grow up, become adults, and begin to have children of their own. Approximately 20-30 years, averaging 25 years. Each generation becomes known by what characterizes the lives of those in it – what they do and how they impact society.

I’ve been thinking about my son, who would be 36 this year – if he had survived the opioid plague that began in the 1990’s with the prescribing of opioids for every ache and pain. What Purdue Pharma did is old news and well documented. But the effect of the immorality of the Sackler family set a course that destroyed the lives of an entire generation – the “Millennials” generation of my son and his contemporaries.

Far more than a million Americans have died due to a drug overdose in the past 25 years and the majority of those deaths are from opioids. (1) Initially it was prescription opioids, then heroin, then fentanyl. And now a daily variation of synthetic opioids mixed in with every variety of street drug. These are made from precursor chemicals from China and shipped around the globe where they are “formulated” into fake prescription pills or street drugs in jungle or backyard labs. Quality control is non-existent.

Beyond the deaths, there are millions of Americans who are suffering from life-threatening addiction. They will either be another statistic or live the life of an empty shell surviving from one fix to the next just to not feel “dope sick.” Many are homeless and jobless. All experience despair and hopelessness. It will take years to gain long-term recovery if they can access health care and programs.

There has been some good news. After the peak years of the Covid pandemic, when the rates of addiction and deaths from overdoses rose substantially, the statistics for 2024 finally show a decline in both. (2) It may be due to less anxiety and depression since the pandemic ended. It may also be due to more awareness of Medicated Assisted Treatment and better access to Harm Reduction tools such as pill testing and overdose reversal medication naloxone.

I think the best area for hope is the common knowledge the “Gen Z” kids are growing up with about the deadly dangers of drug addiction. That their parents are also more aware of the drug supply than parents of Millennials like me. The 2023 National Survey on Drug Use & Health found that the majority of adolescents (12-17 yrs. old) in the USA are not using substances, alcohol, tobacco products or vaping. (3) But ongoing effort is imperative. “Continued prevention programming, education, and public messaging focused on adolescents can delay or prevent substance use and avoid the negative impacts of substance use that have been widely documented.”

If we truly want to see future generations of children have the opportunity to grow up without the continual pull to use drugs, we need to keep our relationships with them open and healthy. Every year we can delay experimentation with addictive substances allows children’s brains to develop more fully in the area of judgment. We must all stay informed and aware and work in whatever arena we are able. As Barack Obama told Michelle when he was working for her as an intern, that he was in law school because grass roots organizing had shown him that meaningful societal change requires not just the work of the people on the ground, but stronger policies and governmental action as well. (4)

Fentanyl and the U.S. Opioid Epidemic

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/fentanyl-and-us-opioid-epidemic

2. The Opioid Crises and The Pandemic

Opioid overdoses soared during the pandemic, spreading to previously less-affected groups including teenagers and the elderly

3. NSDUH Data Show Most Adolescents in the US Are Not Using Substances

Click to access 2023-nsduh-spotlight-nonuse.pdf

4. Becoming, by Michelle Obama, Chapter 8

Born Imperfect, Complex, & Unique

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

I think we would all agree that each and every one of us is born imperfect. There are so many complex and unique aspects to the human body which generations of genes have contributed. The things that make up our physical and mental attributes. One example is our face. It is estimated that only 2% of the world’s population has a truly symmetrical face. The right side usually appears larger than the left and eyes, nose and ears are not perfectly aligned. When you see a photo of a face with both sides exactly the same, its actually creepy. They lack character and look like AI.

Some of us are born with deficiencies that make life difficult and challenging, like being born blind, or deaf, or with a physical deformity. Because of amazing advances in science and medicine in the last century, many of these problems can be corrected. I had crowded teeth when I was young and am so thankful I was able to get braces and have a normal smile. We would not understand if someone had the opportunity to receive this kind of help and didn’t access it because they or others in their community thought they should just live as they are. We all want to feel comfortable and that we belong, are ‘normal’ in this world.

What about when someone is born with an internal deficiency such as a heart condition or kidney problem or blood disorder? We never think twice about having medical help or drugs and lifestyle changes to remediate the problem if it is possible. So why is there any discussion on whether someone who is born with an imbalance of normal brain chemicals or hormones should live in constant struggle and not access medication?

This thought came up as I considered the reasons behind why some people seem to need something like drugs to make them feel ‘normal’ to themselves and to the people around them. When everyone else seems to easily roll with the ups and downs of life while they get stuck on the downs. When how they think and process input and information is not the same as others. When their ability to be at peace or sleep is chronically unobtainable.

I’m not at all suggesting that individuals who seek drugs all have legitimate genetic or biochemical voids. As we know, many young people start drug use because of peer pressure and the environment that surrounds them. But underlying mental struggles or health conditions may be the determining factor that pushes them into, rather than away from, repeated use. I found it interesting that among my son’s high school and college friends, many tried all the drugs – uppers, downers, hallucinogenic – and some went on to addiction to uppers like cocaine and meth while others to downers like opioids and benzos and some walked away from all of them.

But once repeated and continual use happens, the chemicals and receptors in the brain are changed and more than ever, medication and therapy are going to be a big part of recovery from use and restoration of normalized brain signals. The need for medication may be short term or lifelong. Regardless, we all need to remember that just like shaming someone because they have a physical deformity is totally unacceptable, shaming someone who is struggling with mental health and/or addiction problems is also unacceptable.

This does not mean we enable destructive behavior or stop supporting someone to get professional medical and psychological help along with a supportive community. Never. If we want to see someone who is struggling become as healthy as possible, our love and support are crucial. And we know that in a country where public health care is a privilege rather than part of a foundation of society, finding the right care can be daunting. Let us be there to help our family, friends, and community receive the care they need by being encouraging and supportive.

Stigma of Addiction: The Effects, The Reasons, and How to Reduce Stigma

by Chris Elkins, MA

https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/stigma/

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Info Hazelden Betty Ford:

https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/mental-health-services/cognitive-behavioral-therapy#:~:text=Learn%20more%20about%20this%20popular,techniques%20in%20working%20with%20patients.

The Importance of Friends – Pt 2

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

How do clean and sober friends stay involved with a friend who is in active addiction and/or alcoholism? I ended last month’s blog asking this question. In particular, I want to discuss ways that teens and young adults can deal with this difficult and at times very frustrating problem.

What does being a good friend to someone who is addicted look like?

The first thing is to not pretend you don’t know about their addiction. Talk about it openly but without judgment. Understand that they may deny any problem, so you may have to cite specifics that have made you concerned. Express that you care about them and don’t think less of them as a person because of their struggles. Risk your comfort zone. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down your life for your friends.” (1)

Be a good listener. A problem with drugs or alcohol may start from just experimenting with drugs at a party or concert. It may then turn into addiction and be fueled by problems at home or with friends or underlying mental health issues. When your friend feels cared for and accepted and not confronted with more guilt or shame, they will be willing to open up. Nobody planned to become addicted and nobody wants to be an addict. Here’s links to good info on how to help someone trapped in addiction. (2,3)

But, if you remain a good friend to someone who is living a self-destructive life, how do you help them without enabling their addiction? For young people who are good friends, enabling might be keeping secrets for them about their problem, especially from adults who may need to know in order to take life-saving action. It may be loaning them money or driving them to get drugs. The pressure would sound something like: “If you’re my real friend, you won’t tell…” Or “If you really want to help me you would…” Basically, when you support their problematic behavior in the name of ‘helping’ them, you are actually keeping them from living with the consequences of their poor choices. And this will only prolong their problems and delay change. (4)

Encourage them to get help through programs like SMART Recovery groups or AA for alcohol and NA for narcotics. Very few people overcome addictive behaviors alone. Community is key. Go with them if you can or drive them. And remember, drug and alcohol recovery take lots of time and most people don’t succeed the first time they try to quit. Dr. John F. Kelly, clinical psychologist and addiction medicine expert, says it can take 8 years and 4-5 treatment attempts at recovery to achieve one year of sobriety from opioid and other drug addiction. It can take years to achieve stable recovery and Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) is an important aspect. Gone are the times when a 30-day detox/treatment was seen as the solution to addiction. It may be an important first step in the process of ongoing recovery. People can and do recover, but it will likely be a lifetime journey. Here’s a YouTube 2025 video of Dr. Kelly giving a session on: The New Science on Addiction Recovery. (5)

You can encourage your friend with each small step and success, even through relapses. In our son’s recovery program, we ended each session by saying together: “Keep coming back ‘cause it works if you work it.” It takes hard work and it can be very discouraging for your friend to relapse because your friend wants to be free. No one wants to live controlled by addiction. No one. Encouragement to stick with it is vital.

If your friend or family member is using opioids, you should get naloxone (a medicine that can temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose) and keep it handy. Available through local community-based programs or pharmacies.

It’s worth saying again: Friends are SO important for people in active addiction.

Don’t ever give up on your friends trapped in addiction. They need friends more than ever, friends who love them and will invest in their lives and let them know they are a worthwhile human – while you also need to encourage them to seek help in order to become sober and stable. And to remind them by example of what a normal and joy-filled life is like and one that they too can have.

A best friend is someone who believes in you

even when you’ve stopped believing in yourself.

– Unknown

John 15:13, New Testament
Helping Someone with a Drug Addiction

https://www.helpguide.org/mental-health/addiction/helping-someone-with-drug-addiction

How to help someone who is misusing drugs or alcohol:

https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/help-someone-who-is-misusing-drugs-or-alcohol#:~:text=Celebrate%20small%20successes%20and%20try,Narcotics%20Anonymous%20and%20SMART%20Recovery.

Four Signs of Enabling and How to Stop

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/enabling

Dr. John F. Kelly, Ph.D. The New Science on Addiction Recovery (lecture)

The Importance of Friends – Part 1

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

Approaching what would be my son’s 36^th birthday, I thought about the last year of his life. I don’t think about it often because it is painful – so many wishes that things had gone differently for him.

One sadness is that when in active addiction, he was very alone. It’s not that JL didn’t have lots of friends – he did. He was friendly and likeable and the large group of friends who came to his memorial is a testament to that. But most of his high school and university-era friends were not involved in his life during the last few years of his life, and the last year in particular. After his accidental fall and relapse to opiates in 2008 and the next seven years in and out of recovery programs, his life became narrower and something he was ashamed of.

An event that stands out was during a time of heroin use that we were not fully aware of as he lived in our rental house, and we thought he was attending his classes at university. We received an urgent call from two of his friends telling us that they knew he was back to spending all his time with his friend that used heroin with him and they were not getting an answer to their calls. They were at his house and he wasn’t responding to their knocks on his door – did they have our permission to break his door down? Our frightened response was “Yes!” They found him deep in drugged sleep and alive but very startled when they burst in. They confronted him with what they knew and their concern about his drug use. He of course was defensive and pretended that nothing was wrong.

Gradually, these friends, along with others, were no longer part of his life. JL did make a good friend or two in his recovery programs, but he always kept his addicted friends and dealers separate from his sober friends who were mostly not aware of his use and relapses – he had a pretty good poker face. Most of them were shocked to hear of his overdose death because he had been in a sober living house for six months and doing well.

Many of the friends who had such good times together when JL was clean (although not necessarily sober, as they enjoyed drinking with him not realizing how that always led back to drugs for JL) felt guilt after his death. Guilt because he called several of them the week before his death when he had just relapsed. It seems he wanted a friend to talk to and perhaps perceive that he was struggling. And guilt because they wished they had stayed in touch with JL and not distanced themselves from him when he continued to struggle with addiction.

But there’s the rub: How do sober friends stay involved with a friend who is in active addiction? I think it is especially difficult for young people, who don’t know what they can do, who may be more concerned with their own lives and issues, and who are not yet mature. This is not to suggest that any human is ever totally selfless regardless of how old we are – I know myself too well to hold this delusion. But the passing of years does bring relational experience and can help us focus more on those around us.

Next month I will try to share some insights and ideas for teens and young adults for how to truly be a friend to someone who is struggling with addiction and sobriety. Just remember:

Don’t ever give up on your friends or family who are trapped in addiction. They need good friends more than ever. King Solomon gave this wise insight 3,000 years ago: Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. (1)

Many people will walk in and out of your life,

but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

—Eleanor Roosevelt

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Is Teen Turmoil Inevitable?

(Translation into most languages at tab to the right)

I want to continue with the thoughts from my November blog on The Cycle of Harm and how we now know that the War on Drugs has failed miserably. And especially in attempting to dissuade teens and young adults from using drugs, a punitive approach to drug use has failed spectacularly. There are many reasons for this: the development of the teen brain, the growing need for autonomy, and the influence of culture and their friends, among other things.

There have been innumerable research studies on the teen brain. “The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so. In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.” (1)

While the teen years are when our brains can comprehend and store new information at its highest rates, the ability to process that information in light of future consequences just isn’t there yet. And during these years there is a need to separate from our parents and begin the process of becoming an adult.

David Robson, in an article for the BBC, says, “Adolescents often desperately crave the approval and acceptance of their parents. So while they certainly do want independence, it is not at any cost. Brain imaging studies show that the regions of the brain associated with reward generally develop more quickly than those associated with inhibition and self-control. They have greater activity in their dopamine signaling – a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and curiosity – compared to both adults and younger children, with bigger spikes when they experience something that is novel or exciting. In this light, it’s little wonder that teens are more likely to be tempted to try new experiences…with impulsive and risky decision making.” (2)

Holiday Perspectives and Prospects

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

The holidays are upon us. Some believe that it’s our perspective that makes all the difference in how we feel about them. Looking ahead may fill a person with joyful anticipation of what’s planned, dogged determination to make it through, or a feeling of dread and desire to escape. But are these situations only just a matter of one’s perspective or one’s prospects? Is much of how we feel based on what is happening in our life: are we living with abundance, security, good health, and healthy relationships? Unsatisfying work, too much debt, illness, and strained relationships? Or is our income irregular or non-existent, our housing insecure or non-existent, and our relationships like vampires or non-existent?

The Cycle of Harm – End It For Good

(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.