The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
During my 35-year legal career, I served for a time in a county attorney’s office and as a public defender. In those positions, I became familiar with drug-abuse problems. I quickly realized that drug abuse was a societal problem turned into a law enforcement problem filling our jails. This problem was made worse by politicians shouting the mantra of tough on crime.
Regarding Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, the wagons are being circled for her protection on this issue. First, LaWall gets her own opinion piece defending her record on drug prosecutions filling our jail. She takes credit for decreasing the number of jail beds filled by drug offenders, without acknowledging she has been a 40-year prosecutor, creating the problem she proudly claims she is now solving.
Next is a piece by police Capt. John Leavitt. He lets the cat out of the bag, showing his bias by stating there is no such thing as a nonviolent drug user. This gives the police and County Attorney’s Office the green light to prosecute any drug user.
But the scariest reveal in Leavitt’s piece is a new program to treat any drug overdose death as a homicide, stating the county attorney (presumably LaWall) has “embraced this program.” Those who have overdosed are called “good people,” while vilifying those who provide the drugs. What Leavitt fails to mention is many of those supplying the drugs are also users and many times friends of the overdoser. Many of these people regularly do each other a favor by supplying drugs to one another, knowing the pains of withdrawal.
Many supply drugs to others thinking they are doing them a “favor,” and they trade drugs back and forth. We may disapprove of this behavior, but should a death as a result of these transactions be prosecuted as a homicide? Isn’t this just the same old tough-on-drugs stance that filled our jails in the first place?
I recently had a good friend come to me with the devastating news that his son had died of an overdose. Despite his obvious pain, he knew a prosecution of the supplier would not bring his son back. This would only be an attempt to cast around for easy blame for a very complex problem. He knew that ultimately he would feel no better if the supplier was charged with homicide. He also knew his son was not an innocent person in this whole scenario and his son had probably supplied drugs to someone in the past. These are hard truths, but truths nonetheless.
On an even more personal note, my sister died from a drug overdose. Her supplier was her doctor, who ignored all the signs (previous overdoses) that my sister should not be prescribed certain drugs. While angry at the doctor, wondering how he could have been so blind, prosecuting him for homicide was hardly the answer. And after all, he was a doctor, not the kind of person we think of when discussing homicide overdose cases.
Let’s not keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Locking up someone for homicide who has supplied drugs causing an overdose will not lessen this scourge. It may make us think something is being done, but it is just the same old same old that got us into wasting money on the war on drugs and resulting in overflowing jails.
Drug abuse should be treated as the complex societal problem it is. The simple solution of lock them up will not solve anything.
