Monthly Archives: March 2017

We are not helping addicts!

[John P. Flannery was a federal drug prosecutor in the Southern District of NY,  and served on various drug task forces since.]

[John P. Flannery was a federal drug prosecutor in the Southern District of NY,
and served on various drug task forces since.]

We say we want to fight drug addiction in this nation and in the communities where we live but we are not helping the addicts.

There is a frenzy among elected and appointed officials, blathering on at press conferences, oh so concerned, seeking to discourage drug use and addiction, including street heroin and prescription drugs.

But law enforcement is not going after the drug kingpins, instead it’s chasing and arresting the low hanging fruit that are the persons, the addicts, they say they want to help.

Our law enforcement officials are going after the drug stats that bring funds into sheriff’s offices and police stations around the nation, and they get these numbers by arresting those who may rightly be considered the victims of the drug trade, the addicts that these chest-beating officials insist they want to help.

If you go after drug lords, they fight back.  An officer can get hurt doing that.  I’ve known brave men and women from the DEA, however, who did just that, went undercover, risked life and limb, and broke up drug rings that saved many from addiction.

On the other hand, if you go after the victims of the drug trade to make a criminal case, you’ve got an easy mark, with little or no personal risk as an officer.

In the 70s when we called this a “war” on drugs, and believed we’d some day win “the war,” I prosecuted drug lords who brought 600 pounds of heroin from France, and mobsters who brought many millions of dollars of heroin from Thailand.  Other members of our “junk” unit worked similar cases.  While the drug trade persists these many years later, we seem to have gotten worse at fighting – what one DEA agent called – the white death.

Too often these days, our enforcement policies are awfully close to criminalizing an individual’s status as addict, a health problem.  We prosecute an addict as a criminal, whom we insist to the papers and the general public, this is a person who can’t help himself, and this is a person who commits other petty offenses including small quantity hand to hand drug buys to afford his fix.

The Supreme Court, in Robinson v. California, 370 US 660, 666, 82 S. Ct. 1417, 1420, 8th Ed 2d 758 (1962), found it to be a “cruel and unusual punishment”, a violation of the 8th Amendment, to make it a crime to be an addict:

“A State may not punish a person for being ‘mentally ill, or a leper or . . . . afflicted with a venereal disease’, or for being addicted to narcotics.”  Id.

The Court said “To inflict punishment for having a disease is to treat the individual as a diseased thing rather than as a sick human being.”

In Robinson, the crime of addiction was a misdemeanor, and so the punishment was not as severe as what we do to some addicts these days when we “save them” only to “prosecute them” for felonies.

The Robinson Court said the fact “[t]hat the punishment is not severe, ‘in the abstract,’ is irrelevant”.  It is the disproportion between the conduct and the penalty.  “Even one day in prison,” the Court said, “would be cruel and unusual punishment for the ‘crime’ of having a common cold.” Id., at 667, 82 S. Ct. at 142.

I know well a young man in the area, who was an addict, suffered an overdose, passed out, would have died, and been lost to friend and family alike had he not been brought back to consciousness by the drug, Narcan.

This young man was taken to the hospital where he was observed by the attending physician and nurses to assure that he would survive.

(Even after receiving the drug Narcan, there is no guarantee that the patient will survive.)

But lo and behold, a law enforcement officer stationed himself in the young man’s emergency room after he was admitted.

Another officer entered the emergency room and remained continuously with the young man, sitting bedside, asking him questions within an hour of the young man’s overdose, within minutes of the young man’s partially remembered glimpse into the mid-distance between life and death.

The officer told the young man, he didn’t want to prosecute the young man – as if the young man could possibly understand what the officer meant.

The officer asked him “to cooperate,” tell what he knew, and he wouldn’t be prosecuted.

It would be fair to say the young man didn’t have his mind about him. The young man told the officer what he knew of the small quantities he used and where he got them and who he traded small amounts with in order to sustain his addiction.

At the end of this, the law enforcement officer found his “cooperation” unsatisfactory and sought to prosecute him for the felony of trafficking in drugs.

There you have it, what we really mean by helping addicts.

We don’t.

“Envision” – end of rural?

Lovettsville in Loudoun’s Rural Area

Lovettsville in Loudoun’s Rural Area

Loudoun County, self-described as one of the richest and most splendid counties in America, has set upon producing a “new” comprehensive plan, titled, “Envision Loudoun,” and, to that end, sought to obtain the opinions of the community in what were called, “listening and learning sessions,” to determine what that plan should look like for the County including its rural area.

David Truman, a political scientist, wrote that public hearings and input sessions may be to inform the governing body or they may just be methods to expel political energy while disregarding the will of the people.

Focusing on Western Loudoun, the comments from listening, learning and postings in this ongoing process include thousands of published comments (in small 10 pica type) to preserve Western Loudoun and to stop the development that is underway; this is a sample of the comments:

  • “Stop the urban sprawl and protect Western Loudoun.”
  • “Maintain two distinct areas, rural west, urban east.”
  • “Keep the West rural.”
  • “Stop growth.”
  • “Contributing to this is the county caving in to developers’ desires…”
  • “Economic development should not be a higher purpose than livability – property rights matter.”
  • “Rural roads should be left unpaved.  If people move to the rural area it should be for the aesthetics of the area.”
  • “Protect culture of western Loudoun established over last 250 years.”
  • “Protect stone fences throughout western Loudoun, along historic roadways in western Loudoun County, e.g., Beaverdam Creek Historic Roadway.”
  • “Maintain open spaces.”
  • “Preserve current agriculture [and] farms.”
  • “Historic villages aren’t meant to support traffic.”
  • “No big box stores [in] Western Loudoun.”
  • “Love Western Loudoun as it is, keep open space, horse farms, fight development pressure/housing development.”
  • “Stop the residential development.”

At the same time, the public’s opinions were released, there was a separate “Foundation Report” that purported to represent the findings of the “listening” and “learning.”

It described how “Loudoun County has evolved from a collection of rural villages” and from when it was “primarily an agricultural community.”

Rather than cite the will of the residents in the County, and in Western Loudoun, the Report says there is a “growing market demand for new types of development and community amenities.” Continue reading

TRUMPCARELESS! Sad!

Mr. Donald Trump and Speaker Ryan

Mr. Donald Trump and Speaker Ryan

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump promised in September 2015 on 60 Minutes that when he got rid of Obamacare, “I am going to take care of everybody.  Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

Yet there’s Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s plan in the House of Representatives that won’t cover everyone – and Ryan is just fine with that – as are many members of the Republican caucus fine including Virginia Congresswoman Barbara Comstock – no matter that Ryan is prepared to leave millions behind without health coverage who have been covered under Obamacare.

Asked how many would lose coverage, Speaker Ryan said on CBS’s Face the Nation, “I can’t answer that question.”

Incidentally, Mr. Trump is lobbying Congress to support Speaker Ryan’s plan, to calm the fears of Republican members with a conscience.

Vice President Pence said they need the support of every Republican Member to pass the measure in the House.

Some will die without the health care coverage guaranteed by Obamacare.

Others will find health care unaffordable and do without and suffer for it.

For example, Lovettsville’s Eden Reck, 10 years old, reportedly has had 40 hospitalizations in her life, because of life-threatening genetic conditions.  Obamacare assures her family that she will continue to be treated.  The lifetime cap eliminated by Obamacare means her three siblings will now be at risk for the $1 Million lifetime cap she might exhaust for her care alone. Continue reading

Trump tap tweet – “SAD!”

The latest Trump pants on fire lie

The latest Trump pants on fire lie

Misdirection is the first considered refuge of a cornered politician or a guilty suspect.

Of course, some politicians and suspects have a core character that draws the line at lying once caught – and they face the music.

Mr. Trump is not, however, “that guy” who confesses to chopping down the cherry tree.

Mr. Trump charged President Obama wasn’t born in the United States without any evidence.

Mr. Trump claimed he would have won the popular vote last year if there hadn’t been voter fraud without any evidence of fraud.

Mr. Trump claimed to have had the biggest electoral vote since 1984 when President Obama bested Mr. Trump’s electoral total in both of Mr. Obama’s elections.

Mr. Trump lies about things big and small.

Afterwards, he walks his lies back, when the lies have had the desired effect that Mr. Trump contemplated, to gain tribute for himself (often) or, to misdirect public attention from his own misconduct (an almost daily occurrence now).

It is little wonder that Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with cabinet members and oval office staff who have trouble “recalling” their contacts with the Russians during or since the presidential election. Continue reading