Monthly Archives: June 2022

Theres a tragic moment in the final episode of We Own This City when Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter, played by Jamie Hector, makes the fateful choice to take his own life and stage it as a line-of-duty death. Suiter, shown momentarily hiding behind a van while he pumps himself up, takes a final lungful of air and runs down an alley, shouting at nobody, Stop! Police! Stop! before firing three shots from his service weapon, once into his own head.

His partner, Detective David Bomenka, chases after Suiter who was obscured by brick row houses when he fired the fateful shot but when he catches up to Suiter, the 18-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department is already dying. The real Suiter would be officially pronounced dead at Maryland Shock Trauma within hours of the shooting.

Its the episodes most heartbreaking scene, as Suiter is one of the few characters with a badge in HBOs quasi-sequel to The Wire who selflessly serves his community without becoming corrupted in the process. Suiters death remains mired in controversy because of the fact that he was expected to testify before a grand jury regarding the notorious Gun Trace Task Force the very next day. Despite the communitys suspicions, the Baltimore Police Department officially deemed Suiters death a suicide.

But even though the scene packs an emotional punch worthy of the shows finale, theres another scene in the final episode that reveals the true intentions of the six-episode miniseries, and it doesnt include a single member of the GTTF that dominates the shows storyline.

Theres a brief exchange near the beginning of the episode in which Nicole Steele, an investigator from the Department of Justices Civil Rights Division who is charged with creating a consent decree in the wake of the Freddie Gray riots, and Brian Grabler, a retired Baltimore detective who now teaches recruits at the police academy, discuss the reality of crime and corruption in not just Baltimore, but all of Americas major cities.

What doesnt this consent decree say? Grabler asks Steele. What is the Justice Department unwilling to admit? What are the police trying to do? Whats the mission?

Steele, who is the shows only major fictional character, admits to Grabler that the war on drugs and the problems it created is the elephant in the room the consent decree fails to address. Its the war on drugs that spurred mass incarceration, police corruption, and the blooming violence that plagues cities like Baltimore.

Exactly, Grabler responds to Steeles admission. And in a war, you need warriors. In a war, you have enemies. In a war, civilians get hurt and nobody does anything. In a war, you count the bodies and then you call them victories. Is the Justice Department, or even the Office of Civil Rights, ready to declare that we long ago lost this war? That weve achieved nothing but full prisons, and routine brutality, and a complete collapse of trust between police departments and their cities?

The monologue is brief but poignant. All of the evil and tragedy that permeates the miniseries can be traced back to the ill-conceived war on drugs.

Episode one begins with a bright-eyed Wayne Jenkins, portrayed by Jon Bernthal, giving a speech to new recruits about how to serve their communities with justice and fairness. He makes it abundantly clear that there is zero tolerance for corruption on his elite Gun Trace Task Force.

The declaration is a bit baffling to audiences who know the series is based on the fact that the Gun Trace Task Force became one of the most corrupt police units in history. Jenkins is full of optimism in episode one, which begs the question: How did an officer so upfront about remaining ethical fall so far from grace? Its not until Grablers speech at the end of the series that theyre given their answer.

Few television shows surrounding law enforcement dare to venture beyond surface-level drama, with easily digestible entertainment for audiences who dont want much more than to watch good triumph over evil. We Own This City leaves the cookie-cutter characters and predictable formulas of prime-time police shows behind and instead demands audiences confront the reality of modern law enforcement in the twilight hours of the war on drugs.

Read Next: David Simon, HBO Tackle True Story of Corrupt Baltimore Police Unit

Read more:

'We Own This City' Is Actually a Critique of the War on Drugs - Coffee or Die Magazine

The outgoing regime has concluded that the drug problem has grown too big beyond its capability to control.

With outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte urging the incoming Marcos administration to continue the war on illegal drugsand the president-elect agreeing in principle with his predecessortheres the danger that a return to the take-no-prisoners approach and its violent and bloody outcome since 2016could well be replicated and even take center stage in the months ahead.

We have no quarrel with combating illegal drugs with every weapon at the disposal of the State, particularly if targeted at the big-time drug traffickers and their coddlers in government. But we have a big problem with the police terminating with extreme prejudice even the drug dependents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and find themselves invariably depicted in police reports as nanlaban, the rule of law and due process be damned.

Now, with a new administration poised to take over the reins of government by July 1st, theres been conflicting views on what should be done with it. Will continue it with the same kill, kill, kill approach that Duterte preferred, or temper both the punitive aspect with the treatment and rehabilitation component?

The outgoing regime has concluded that the drug problem has grown too big beyond its capability to control. And the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) apparently wants the war on drugs to be the agencys priority under the Marcos administration.

Interior Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III said the supposedly lower crime rate brought investors to the country. He did not, however, cite any data to back up his conclusion.

This is a very important thing. Because the crime rate is down, many investors came to the Philippines because our peace and order situation is good. I am hoping this continues, he intoned.

The official said it is up to the next administration how it would carry out its anti-narcotics campaign, but suggested its initial phase could be implemented in Metro Manila.

We will brief the incoming secretary Benhur Abalos. Then we will leave it up to them if they will continue the project or revive it in the next administration. But it is a good peace and order program and for the security for our people, Densing said.

The DILGs stand, however, might not be consistent with what President-elect Marcos, Jr. and Vice-President-elect Sara Duterte-Carpio said: that they would add heart to Dutertes drug war, citing the importance of rehabilitation and livelihood opportunities for recovering drug users.

Do you still remember that a Chinese businessman who started small in Manilas Chinatown but became very rich over the years decided to give back to the country by donating money for the construction of a huge 10,000-capacity drug rehabilitation facility in Nueva Ecija province?

Whatever happened to it? We havent heard news about it but the little that weve read in news reports is that only a few hundred drug dependents actually used the facility, and that its been converted to other uses, since its located near a huge army camp in the province.

In short, the Duterte government did not seem to give any priority to the rehabilitation of drug dependents but concentrated more on eliminating anyone involved in illegal drugs, whether casual drug user, street-level dealer, or big-time trafficker.

Duterte has emphasized that his successor should continue to fight illegal drugs, and that it has to be a war.

Thats whats disturbing, as all-out war against illegal drugs as what has happened since 2016 caused too many lives lost and yet the drug problem persists.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) last year authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity on the administrations flagship program, but it has been suspended to assess the scope of the countrys deferral request.

Will the Marcos administration allow the ICC to do its probe? That well have to see.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has said its latest report on the drug war situation in the country has encouraged a culture of impunity as it failed to respect and protect the rights of Filipinos.

While acting presidential spokesperson Martin Andanar said it is pleased that the CHR has independently exercised its mandate, the Palace also sees a rehash of old issues in the report.

Its not a rehash because actually, we released a partial investigation report last year but this is a continuation of a report on the national scale, according to the agency.

In its 48-page report titled Investigated Killings In Relation to the Anti-Illegal Drug Campaign released recently, the CHR concluded that police officers involved in the drug war showed intent to kill and used excessive force in its anti-illegal drug operations.

The CHR study analyzed 882 case dockets involving 1,139 victims. Of this, 920 were killed, while seven cases have remained shrouded in mystery.

Even more disturbing is the recent statement of outgoing President Duterte that after he leaves Malacaang on June 30, he will go back to Davao City and continue his brutal crusade against illegal drugs: Ill search for drug peddlers, shoot them, and kill them.

Not good, not good at all, if you ask us, for the rule of law and due process in this country.

(Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)

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The war on drugs - manilastandard.net

Wanda James began her career in the cannabis industry after one of her brothers was arrested for selling about $160 worth of cannabis. During his prison sentence he picked cotton at a Texas prison.

When I found that out, it was just upsetting enough to us to want to be able to start a business, said the cannabis entrepreneur and candidate for University of Colorado Board of Regents. We wanted to put a Black face on [cannabis business] and talk about mass incarceration, police brutality, and the effects of the drug war.

Wanda James and her husband Scott Durrah became the first Black entrepreneurs to be legally licensed in America to own a dispensary, a cultivation facility, and an edible company. Photo courtesy of Wanda James

Ten years after its legalization in the state, dispensaries line most city streets, and the shopping experience is streamlined and resembles any other retail experience. But what about the population that was most adversely affected by cannabis policy?

With Black Americans being 3.64 times more likely than White Americans to be arrested for cannabis use and possession with comparable usage amounts between the groups, the Black population is more likely to be charged with cannabis-related felonies.Its why so many people of color do not get an early start on the cannabis industry because early on you couldnt have a felony in Colorado and participate in cannabis, James said. A lot of people of color were left out.

Black entrepreneurs account for only 2.7 percent of entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry in Colorado. Latinx entrepreneurs account for 7.7 percent. Even now the fact that we are so far into [cannabis legalization] that all the first advantages have been taken, James said. The opportunity to make up ground is not really there.

Access to capital is a main limitation for entrepreneurs of color, and its only getting worse as prices skyrocket in the industry. James first dispensary cost them about $200,000. Now dispensaries cost millions to start up, James pointed out. Theres lots of growth available, but big business is going to make it ridiculously expensive.

Products sold by Simply Pure Brands. Photo courtesy of Wanda James

When James first opened her business, it was less of a monetary hardship and more of a legal one. People were still getting arrested and going to jail for cannabis sales when it was first legalized in Colorado.

That was our biggest concern was to stay out of jail and make sure that everything that we did was legal, James said. Theres a big difference when you fast forward to today with what concerns there are and what things look like.

James business was raided. Law enforcement went as far as confiscating all of the merchandise, returning it after they couldnt prove a crime occurred.

No one was charged, but its still pretty scary when it happens, James said.

Simply Pure dispensary is located in Denver. Photo courtesy of Wanda James

As more people are using cannabis, James hopes that it will normalize its use and consuming cannabis products may someday be as mainstream as drinking beer.

There will be another decade to get through the reefer madness that still exists in the world, James said. That reefer madness was started in part by the war on drugs. Nixon wanted to have the drug war because it took care of Blacks and hippies; the two groups of people he could not stand. It allowed the federal government and local governments to arrest those communities and to break up any kind of organizing and different things that were happening.

By the 80s and 90s, police became more militarized and focused on policing inner cities and poor communities of color.

America has always had a slave labor class, James said. Being able to put Black and Brown boys in prison between the ages of 17 and 24 became our slave labor class. It was easy to do it with the arrest of cannabis.

With conversations around cannabis shifting, old stigmas will be confronted.

Americans smoke cannabis and always have, James maintained. The issues behind legalization have been all the negative marketing behind cannabis that people have come to believe about people who smoke pot. When I think about people who smoke pot I think of Barack Obama, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and ShaCarri Richardson. It was just such a false narrative and false marketing, and it worked. Now were trying to undo 80 years of negative history.

In Oct. 2020, Governor Polis pardoned Coloradans who were convicted of possession of up to two ounces of cannabis. Although this is a start to give justice to those facing legal ramifications to cannabis use, its not a fix-all.

The ways our laws are written make it difficult to [deliver justice] with just one stroke of the pen, which is another issue in our system that we have to take a look at, James said. We are definitely working our way through those records automatically.

James is the only woman running for a seat on the University of Colorado Board of Regents in the Nov. 2022 election. The board oversees all four campuses of the CU system and manages a $5.2 billion budget.

I look forward to diversifying the board, James said. There hasnt been a Black woman on the board of regents since 1984 when Rachel Noel served on the board. Its definitely more than time to have our voice included. I look forward to moving forward with this.

With CU Boulder researching the effects of cannabis supplements, James hopes to have open discussions around plant medicine through her position on the board.

The idea that I work in cannabis is always going to bring influence of being open to different types of plant medicines, James said. I look forward to having healthy discussions and being a part of the conversations that move the whole CU system.

See more here:

Board of Regents candidate reflects on the intersection of cannabis entrepreneurship, racial justice - Yellow Scene

David Simon concedes that it takes a special kind of [expletive] to say, I told you so.

But I cant help it, OK? he said recently. Nobody enjoys the guy who says, I told you so, but it was organic. Ed and I and then the other writers, as they came on board, we had all been watching some of the same things happen in Baltimore.

Two decades ago, Simon, a former cops reporter at The Baltimore Sun, joined Ed Burns, a retired Baltimore homicide detective and public-school teacher, to create HBOs The Wire. Fictitious but sourced from the Baltimore that Simon and Burns inhabited, The Wire, which premiered on June 2, 2002, introduced a legion of unforgettable characters like the gun-toting, code-abiding Omar Little (played by the late Michael K. Williams) and the gangster with higher aspirations, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba).

They were indelible pieces of a crime show with a higher purpose: to provide a damning indictment of the war on drugs and a broader dissection of institutional collapse, expanding in scope over five seasons to explore the decline of working-class opportunity and the public education system, among other American civic pillars.

This was not the stuff of hit TV: In real time, the show gained only a small, devoted audience and struggled to avoid cancellation. But over the years, The Wire became hailed as one of televisions greatest shows, even as the systemic decay it depicted became more pronounced in the eyes of its creators.

Burns and Simon went on to collaborate on other high-minded projects for HBO, most recently We Own This City, a mini-series created by Simon and their fellow Wire alumnus George Pelecanos, based on the true story of the Baltimore Police Departments corrupt Gun Trace Task Force. In separate interviews, Burns and Simon discussed the legacy of The Wire Burns by phone from his Vermont home and Simon in person in HBOs Manhattan offices and why it couldnt be made in the same way today. They also talked about the inspirations for the show and the devastating effect of Americas drug policies. These are edited excerpts from those conversations.

Could you have ever imagined The Wire would have had this kind of staying power two decades later?

ED BURNS The first thing that comes to my mind is that this show will live forever, because what it tries to portray will be around forever. Its just getting worse and worse. Thats all. And its expanding; its not just an urban thing anymore. Its everywhere.

DAVID SIMON Ed and I in Baltimore, George in Washington, Richard Price in New York wed been seeing a lot of the same dynamics. There were policies, and there were premises that we knew were not going to earn out. They were going to continue to fail. And we were fast becoming a culture that didnt even recognize its own problems, much less solve any of them. So it felt like, Lets make a show about this.

I didnt anticipate the complete collapse of truth, the idea of you can just boldly lie your way to the top. I did not anticipate the political collapse of the country in terms of [Donald] Trump. [The fictitious Baltimore mayor in The Wire, Tommy Carcetti] is a professional politician. Donald Trump is sui generis. Its hard to even get your head around just how debased the political culture is now because of Trump.

The show seemed to hint at the collapse of truth with the fabricated serial killer story line in the final season, and how the media ran with it.

SIMON We very much wanted to criticize the media culture that could allow the previous four seasons to go on and never actually attend to any of the systemic problems. We were going there, but I didnt anticipate social media making the mainstream miscalculations almost irrelevant. You dont even have to answer to an inattentive, but professional press. You just have to create the foment in an unregulated environment in which lies travel faster the more outrageous they are. If truth is no longer a metric, then you cant govern yourself properly.

BURNS If you look at the map, half of the Midwest and West are drought-ridden, and were treating it like how we used to treat a dead body on the corner or a handcuffed guy. Its like a news thing or bad automobile accident: Oh my, look, that tornado ripped apart this whole town. And thats it.

Theres no energy. Ive always thought about trying to do a story where the government has developed an algorithm to identify sparks, the Malcolm Xs and the Martin Luther Kings, these types of people, when theyre young, and then they just either compromise them away with the carrot or they beat them away with a stick. Because you need sparks. You need those individuals who will stand up and then rally people around them, and we dont have that those sparks, that anger that sustains itself.

Is it a conflicting legacy that The Wire has gained a greater audience over the years, yet the institutional decay that it illuminates has seemingly worsened?

BURNS Recently, the Biden administration and the New York mayors administration said they want to increase the number of police on the street. It amuses me that what theyre doing is a definition of insanity: You try something, it doesnt work. You try it again, it doesnt work. Its about time you try something different. Theyre still doing the same thing.

Granted, defund the police is not the right way of presenting the argument. But rechanneling money away from the police to people who could better handle some of the aspects of it would be good. And then doing something even more dramatic, like creating an economic engine, other than drugs, to help people get up and start making something of their lives.

How should We Own This City be viewed in relation to The Wire?

SIMON Its a separate narrative. Were very serious about having attended to real police careers and real activities and a real scandal that occurred. So no, its not connected to The Wire universe in that sense. It is a coda for the drug war that we were trying to critique in The Wire. If The Wire had one political message I dont mean theme; if it just had a blunt political argument about policy it was, End the drug war. And if We Own This City has one fundamental message, its END. THE. DRUG. WAR. In capital letters and with a period between every word. Its just an emphatic coda about where we were always headed if we didnt change the mission of policing in America.

Is a goal of We Own This City to provide a sharper critique on policing than The Wire provided?

SIMON No. I dont think theres that much difference between the two, other than the depths of the corruption of the bad cops. Police work is as necessary and plausible an endeavor as its ever been.

In many cases, and in many places like Baltimore, the national clearance rate has been collapsing for the last 30, 40 years. Thats not an accident. Thats because theyve trained generations of cops to fight the drug war. It doesnt take any skill to go up on the corner, throw everybody against the wall, go in their pockets, find the ground stashes, decide everybody goes, fill the wagons. Thats not a skill set that can solve a murder.

Thats not me saying, Oh, policing used to be great. No, I understand there were always problems with policing. But were one of the most violent cities in America. And all the discourse about abolish the police or defund the police Id be happy to defund the drug war. Id be happy to change the mission, but I dont want to defund the police. Good police work is necessary and elemental, or my city becomes untenable. Ive seen case work done right, and Ive seen case work done wrong, and it matters.

BURNS Im sorry [Baltimore] was labeled the city of The Wire, because we couldve taken that show into any city, in exactly the same way. Akron, Ohio, would have suddenly become the Wire city. So its a shame that it was pushed onto this little town.

Would The Wire be greenlighted if you pitched it today?

BURNS No, definitely not. HBO was going up the ladder at the time. They didnt understand The Wire until the fourth season. In fact, they were thinking about canceling it after three. We caught that moment where networks were thinking, Oh, we need a show for this group of people.

But now, its got to be Game of Thrones. Its got to be big. Its got to be disconnected from stepping on anybodys toes. Ive watched a couple of the limited series on HBO, and theyre good shows, but theyre not cutting new paths. They are whodunits or these rich women bickering among themselves in a town. I dont see anybody saying, Hey, thats a really great show.

SIMON No, because we didnt attend, in any real way, to the idea of diversity in the writers room. I tried to get Dave Mills, who had been my friend since college, to work on The Wire. But that would have been organic. It was just a friend; it wasnt even about Black and white. But other than David, who did a couple scripts for us, and Kia Corthron, the playwright, did one, we were really inattentive to diversity. That wasnt forward thinking.

Why were we inattentive? Because it was so organic to what Id covered and what Ed had policed. And then, I started bringing on novelists. The first guy was George Pelecanos, whose books about D.C. were the same stuff I was covering. And I happened to read his books, and I was like, This guy probably could write what were trying to do. And then he said: Look, youre trying to make novels. Every seasons a novel. We should hire novelists. And so we went and got Price. If I had it to do over again, I would have to look at [the diversity of the creative team] in the same way that I looked at later productions.

In retrospect, is there anything else that you wish that the show had done differently?

BURNS I wish that Season 5 took a different direction, as far as the newsroom was concerned, and didnt debase the idea of investigation. But its fine. What we tried to get across is that the kids that we saw in [Season 4] were becoming, as they approached adulthood, the guys that we saw in [Seasons] 1, 2, 3 and 4. It was continuous. This is just the next generation.

Other than the fact that the issues it highlighted are still prevalent, why do you think The Wire has such staying power?

SIMON Nothings in a vacuum. I would credit Oz for showing me that there was this network out there that would tell a dark story and tell an adult story. Homicide [Simons first book] had been made into a TV show. But with The Corner [Burns and Simons nonfiction book centered on a West Baltimore drug market], I was like: The rights are worth nothing. Nobodys going to put that on American television. And then I saw Oz, and so that was the moment where I looked at HBO and said, Oh, would you like to make a mini-series about a drug-saturated neighborhood and about the drug war?

And then the other places we stole from: We stole from the Greek tragedies, the idea that the institutions were the gods and they were bigger than the people. So, thanks to the college course that made me read Greek plays. Thanks to Paths of Glory, which was a movie about institutional imperative, the [Stanley] Kubrick film I took stuff liberally from there. Thanks to a bunch of novelists, Pelecanos, Price, [Dennis] Lehane, who decided they were willing to write television. Obviously, the cast and crew and everyone.

But it was a show that was ready for where TV was going to end up, and thats where a lot of luck is involved. The idea that you flick on your TV screen and decide you want to watch something that was made 10 years earlier or has just been posted; or youll wait until there are enough episodes to binge watch it; or you have insomnia, so youll watch four hours of a mini-series and just acquire it whenever the hell you want boy, I didnt see that coming.

BURNS Its like a western: Its mired in legend. But the legend is actually reality. Today, 20 years ago, 20 years from now its the same thing. And each generation coming up, each bunch of kids coming up, discover it and inject more life into it.

Read more from the original source:

The Wire Creators, David Simon and Ed Burns, on the Show 20 Years Later - The New York Times

DETAINED Senator Leila M. de Lima on Monday asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to dig deeper in their review of her drug cases, after four witnesses retracted their allegations relating to her supposed crime.

In assessing or re-assessing the rest of the evidence against me, the SoJ (Secretary of Justice) or DoJ must go beyond a superficial review of the cold statements or affidavits of the witnesses and inquire into the very circumstances by which these were extracted, the senator, one of the staunchest critics of outgoing President Rodrigo R. Duterte, said in a statement.

Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra, a Duterte appointee, at the weekend said the review would only take a few days.

The prosecution needs to reassess the strength of its overall evidence in the light of the retractions of certain witnesses, he said. If the prosecution believes that such recantations do not affect its case, then the prosecution will maintain its course.

Ms. De Lima said DoJ should ensure no injustice is done to anyone.

The drug charges against Ms. De Lima started after she led a Senate investigation of Mr. Dutertes war on drugs that has killed thousands.

In her previous post as head of the Commission on Human Rights, she also probed the assassination of suspected drug pushers by the so-called Davao Death Squad, allegedly upon the orders of Mr. Duterte when he was still the city mayor.

In her five years in detention, Ms. De Lima has repeatedly asserted her innocence, saying she was being prosecuted for criticizing Mr. Dutertes drug war. Alyssa Nicole O. Tan

View original post here:

De Lima asks DoJ to dig deeper in their review of her drug cases - BusinessWorld Online

West Virginias history of lagging most of the nation in many categories is well documented. And so, too, is the premise that the Mountain State often is at, or near, the cutting edge in a dubious category: The very latest trends in substance use.

These days, as The New York Times German Lopez reported recently, synthetic drugs the type made in a laboratory, like fentanyl or methamphetamine are leading the way and helping produce more overdose deaths than ever before in the country (over 100,000 in 2021).

You know, were behind the nation in most things except for drug addicts, said the commander of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes Task Force, whos been enforcing drug laws in some capacity for 31 years.

The synthetic portion of that article, weve suffered with that for a couple of years now. The meth is off the charts. During the pandemic, when they had the border basically, all borders shut down, we saw a doubling of the price of everything, which actually slowed things down a little bit. Made things a little a little bit more expensive, he said.

But now theres no lack of anything that you want to get. If youre in little old Harrison County, West Virginia, but you want to get 10 pounds of meth, you can get 10 pounds of meth. If you want to get enough fentanyl to kill the East Coast, you can get enough fentanyl to kill the East Coast. You can get what you want, the commander said.

Bridgeport Interim Police Chief Mark Rogers also spent several years assigned to the Greater Harrison task force.

I prepared the last years report to [Bridgeport City] Council for 2021 and went through the numbers, and just generally speaking between the task force, [Mountaineer Highway Interdiction Team South], our officers alone, we recovered enough fentanyl just in theory to kill half of West Virginia, using the 1,000-microgram dose, Rogers said.

So I look at that and I think from my time at the task force, [fentanyl] was very rare. You might buy a patch that was divvied out in micrograms in the medical sense. Its astronomical, the problem we have with it now, because not only are they doing it with cut product as the commander talked about but you have drug dealers who peddle this as heroin and its actually not. Its fentanyl, Rogers said.

And then you have now the introduction of pill presses. And there are drug users who thought that they could use a certain type of drug, you know, be it a pill form that goes through the vetting process that the government has for medications, Rogers said.

They think theyre getting that, and now theyre finding out its fentanyl, which instituted the One Pill Can Kill idea that the DEA has promoted for quite a while now. I dont think this problem is going away. Synthetics are the hardest ones, I think, to chase because they will ever evolve the chemistry to try to, they believe, outwit the government [with] their analogs. They think that they can jump into something else, Rogers said.

Recently, I think there was a thing that came out that there is now an opioid that is three times stronger than fentanyl. And its just the promotion by drug traffickers to get a stronger product so they can make a larger cut to make volume that ultimately ends up on our streets. I dont know that this is going away, Rogers said.

Harrison Sheriff Robert Matheny is the recently elected chairman of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes Task Forces Board of Control. He also has been a law enforcement officer for decades, from serving as a patrol officer, detective and administrator at the Clarksburg Police Department, to a later stint as police chief in Wheeling.

Matheny, Harrison sheriff since 2017, clearly is vexed by some of the roadblocks for both drug enforcement and substance use treatment.

Its certainly no reflection on our federal partners. Weve got great federal partners, but we dont have many of them, Matheny said. I always say if the federal government wanted to make a dent in this problem, they could. Its never going to go away, but there could be a dent made in it.

You look at here on a local level, we provide the resources. Bridgeport attaches a couple guys, we do, Clarksburg [does] to the [Greater Harrison] drug task force, which is important and its great. But as [the commander] said, you have two postal inspectors in the area. You probably got a handful of DEA, FBI, go through the alphabet soup, whatever. I just think there could be more buy-in from the federal government to help us out here locally, Matheny said.

Look what they did with COVID, how much money they threw at it, and what changes have been made over the past couple of years. Could you imagine once we get past this pandemic if they would throw those funds towards treatment, investigation, enforcement, you know, all the things that are important, as the commander said, if we would throw that kind of seriousness at this, Matheny said.

And Im not saying that our guys arent serious, and we dont take it serious, but as a whole, if the entire federal, state and local governments would take a serious approach. At the end of the day, it comes down to funding. If they would throw the serious funds to get the boots on the ground to work with our guys, we could make a dent in it, Matheny said.

But, I dont see that happening. Weve known that since President Nixon started the whatd they call it? the War on Drugs back in the 70s. And were still fighting the same thing. It is frustrating. But I will say kudos to the guys that we have out here working, even the patrol officers and patrol deputies. They try their hardest, Matheny said.

The three veteran officers agree theres a definite need for working on reducing the demand for drugs, including the synthetics. But theyre also not backing down from balancing that with trying to curb supply.

The commander recalled one especially successful operation that shuttered a head shop in Clarksburg that was selling huge quantities of the synthetic drug known as bath salts (cathinones).

After it was shut down in 2012, it was impossible for a long time to get the synthetic bath salts in the area, the commander said.

There was a nice period of time when the sole supply at that time was taken out and there was a nice lull in incidences, the commander said. But, they found a way to get it through the mail from China. Not to the scale and not with the ease that it once had been when that store was just wide open. But they work hand-in-hand. Someone will always take the risk to get it to the people that want it. Youve got to focus on both to make it successful.

Interdiction with synthetics can range from stops at the border to postal inspectors intercepting mailed shipments. The commander notes the equation of many dealers: Theyll send 10 packages in the mail fully anticipating two will be intercepted. Or theyll send 10 mules drug carriers across the border, also anticipating only an 80% success rate.

He recalls when the same kind of math was used in shipping cocaine to southern Florida. At first, cartels sent cocaine on ships. When that method was targeted by law enforcement, the supply method switched to planes dropping shipments, and later, after efforts to thwart air supply, to submarines making deliveries, the commander said.

Supply will always find a way to get it, but if you can choke on them, you increase their costs, the commander said. And I think largely the cartels in Mexico, that [New York Times] articles dead on about: You know, I could send enough fentanyl over, something the size of a baseball that you can cut down and make X amount of dollars. But if I wanted to do that in marijuana, my God, itd be a tractor-trailer.

If I wanted to do it in cocaine, it would be a large shipment. Meth would be a large shipment. But fentanyl, its small. Its hard to detect. You [take] pure fentanyl and get it over here and then you bust it, you cut it to where its what were seeing on the street, thats a small thing to [accomplish]. And it doesnt help that the borders just basically wide open.

Detecting synthetics provides its own challenges. But Matheny said one tool thats proven effective is using patrol officers, including road deputies or those specially assigned, such as with Mountaineer Highway Interdiction Team South, to pinch them on another arrest and find that they have this product.

Then we get with our guys on the task force, the experts with it. Maybe we try to tie him back to a larger group or larger-scale, you know, involvement in it. And, you know, thats how we do it, and it works, Matheny said.

Rogers would like to see more money, training and personnel dedicated to education of young people to try to reduce the demand early on.

I think the DARE program was a great program, and for some reason I know that society has changed in the way that they deliver information and then take it in. But there has to be something that we can come up with as a nation to help fix this and get that information across that doesnt normalize drugs whatsoever, Rogers said.

And I think its been a mixed signal from our government. Locally, I think that you have lots of people who have lived in households where now youre talking multi-generational families that parts of those families are drug users, drug abusers, have addiction problems. And it normalizes it, unfortunately, for a large sector of society. And we need to make sure that theyre well aware that that isnt normal and there should be options for them to get the help that they need and help alleviate that one desire to, I guess, dabble in it, Rogers said.

The task force commander recalls that his son had more instruction in middle school on bicycle safety than on drug awareness, and that makes no sense to me. The commander also recollects that, when he was a youth, the DARE program scared the [expletive] out of me about drugs.

I dont know if its because drugs are so personal at a political level or at a family level, that people just dont want to talk about it in that sense of scaring their children; Im not sure. I know how my house is run. My kids are scared of drugs. I take my kids in the car and take them and see the [expletive] parts of town and Im like, this is where you end up. If you use drugs, this is the lifestyle you have to look forward to. That person was a star athlete ... in Clarksburg that kid was a stud in basketball. Now look at him just waiting for somebody to flip him a $20 piece of crack. I still preach scaring the hell out of my kids, at least about the dangers of it. I just dont know why were not doing it on a national level. I dont get it, the commander said.

He believes the government is right to spend money on handing out supplies of Narcan to users, because it saves lives, but we should also be spending some money on education awareness with youth.

In making that comment, he notes the one flaw about Narcan.

It does save a lot of lives. But, it also means a lot of repeat overdoses. And eventually ... they will be someplace where somebody doesnt have Narcan.

He also points out that the free Narcan has to be paid for by someone, and in the end, thats taxpayers.

Rogers said Bridgeport police have been carrying Narcan (naloxone) for about five years. At first, it was meant to revive those suffering from heroin overdoses, because that was the more prevalent drug in the region.

But last year now with the area besieged with fentanyl Bridgeport officers administered naloxone on three different occasions to save lives, Rogers said. He indicated that wouldnt even have been on his radar as a potential occurrence in Bridgeport 10 years ago.

And then he points out that trying to instill a healthy fear in young people is good. Its a chance to get them to say, Hmm, this could really wreck my life. It could potentially take it.

But he adds that a lot of people just dont get to see that part of society that law enforcement gets to see fairly routinely. And Rogers adds that addiction strikes everywhere, with users shooting up in so-called bad parts of towns, but in tony locations, too.

Its everywhere, and people just dont realize that until it smashes you in the face because a family member has an issue, Rogers said.

Matheny, Rogers and the commander also are clearly upset that while West Virginia is dealing with a drug crisis, the number of effective treatment facilities is still lacking.

We dont have the facilities to get the people the help that they need. And most of the people I dont want to say all but most of the people that are in that addictive lifestyle, they cant afford to go to Utah or Florida or California for rehab, the commander said. Its going to be a taxpayer thing. ... Its great for the people out in LA, they got money, and you know the Hollywood stars that get addicted and they get to go off to some of the best recovery places they can afford to hire life coaches. You take every junkie in Harrison County, give him a life coach, they probably have a chance, but they cant afford that, and the taxpayers cant afford it.

If somebody was to sit down and task me with, Hey, youre now in charge of fixing this problem and Ive been at it for a long time I would struggle with how in the world would we come up with the money. But I would take what money we did have and I would attack it at all levels, the commander said.

Matheny sees a danger zone between detox and treatment.

Ive always said, I think when you go to detox, you ought to go straight into treatment and then straight into life coach. In a perfect world, there would be somewhere you could drop them off, Matheny said. Because it seems like when they finally hit that low that they want to detox, they detox and theyve got full intentions of getting treatment. But then for various reasons, like the commander said you know, the money, insurance or whatever they cant get right into treatment. So theres this 30 days they cant do it.

The task force commander said the idea of waiting for a treatment bed needs to be all but eliminated if West Virginia wants to make a serious run at curbing the supply side of the substance use crisis.

Somebody detoxes ... and then, We got a bed for you in a month. That might as well be a lifetime to an addict, he said.

Interjected Sheriff Matheny: Because it probably isnt going to happen.

The commander and Rogers recounted watching addicts detox, and agree its horrible. Its physical, its mental, its everything in between, Rogers said.

And then users go to a detox and they have this false hope that theyre good, and absolutely theyre not. Theyre still years to go to try to work towards that being completely off of whatever it was they were addicted to, and in that short period of time in between the detox center and trying to find a bed Or most places, you dont get committed against your will, so its a voluntary thing where they can walk away, Rogers said.

And then as soon as they walk away, that first one could be the last one. Most of the overdoses I worked, thats what the majority of them were, I just needed to try one more time, and the next thing you know, that was their last time.

The commander has seen drug use in the region cycle from Dilaudid (pain pills), to heroin, to OxyContin (pain pills), then to heroin and now to the synthetics, including fentanyl and lab-made meth.

Theres always an ebb and flow, a rise and fall of different drugs. And again, in my opinion, it goes back to that attacking supply and demand evenly, the commander said. You know, you knock out the prescription pill issue if you knock out the demand maybe the heroin wouldnt have flowed back in, or vice versa, heroin to the pills.

Crack cocaine. I mean, we all went through that. That was an epidemic in Clarksburg. It was horrible in Clarksburg. Finally sentencings were stiffer, crack was kind of handled, and then meth pops up.

And you know, were talking two different ends. Were talking depressants, which some people seek, and stimulants. So it wouldnt shock me one bit that if we were able to get a handle on the meth problem, that we wouldnt see crack cocaine pop back up, the commander said.

The whole leave a sleeping dog lie, that doesnt work in this because that sleeping dog is the cartels and the organizations in South America and everywhere else. They see an opportunity. If we could curb the demand here, if we would attack demand.

Rogers has a word of warning for why not to get involved in drugs in the first place, or to move mountains to get out of that lifestyle.

I think Ive told you this before: All drugs are bad, and theres no quality control when it comes to whatever it is that somebodys peddling for money.

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As West Virginia churns from one drug crisis to next, 3 with boots on ground call for better enforcement, treatment & education - WV News