Giorgio: Governor Baker & the Opiod Crisis

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Sunday’s Boston Globe reported on a plan by Governor Charlie Baker to open a second front in his battle with the increasing opiod epidemic in Massachusetts.

Sources tell the Globe that the Governor plans to file legislation giving hospitals the authority to hold drug addicts against their will for up to three days, in order to evaluate them, and decide whether to seek the court’s permission for substantially longer commitments. The plan is modeled after commitments for mental health issues, where a person can be committed against their will, usually in a locked setting. Under the law family members or doctors can seek a 90 day commitment. According to the Globe article over 3200 people were civilly committed last year.

Baker is acting, because there were at least 1200 deaths in the Commonwealth last year from drug overdoses.

We need to shift to the healthcare system

The goal is to shift the crises from the criminal justice system to the healthcare system. It costs about $40,000 a year to keep someone locked up in a prison. Presumably, the costs would be less in a healthcare facility.

The Baker plan does not go far enough. An overwhelming percentage of inmates in our jails are their because of drugs and the crimes they commit to feed their habit.

We need to fundamentally change how we view these “inmates”. We need to shift the focus from a punishment and incarceration model to a treatment model.

It is not as hard as it sounds, if we have the will to do it. We faced this same issue decades ago, when we decriminalized public drunkenness. Some of the laws on public drunkenness and civil commitment for treatment go back to the end of the 19th century, during the Temperance Movement.

We know prohibition didn’t work.

There are at least 13 state Correctional facilities, with differing levels of security and a slew of County Correctional facilities as well as Department of Youth Service lockups in Massachusetts.

There were over 11,000 inmates in state correctional facilities in 2013, the last year for data. On top of this you have another 11,000 inmates locked up in county Houses of Correction. For example the Worcester County House of Correction in West Boylston averages about 1163 inmates per day.

Baker needs to go further

The Governor has made a good start, but he needs to go further. He needs to support so called drug courts whose only function is to deal with addicts and their crimes. It is no secret that most of the Breaking and entering crimes are drug related-an addict looking for easy money to buy drugs. The same might be true with muggings and with prostitution. Let’s get these people out of the criminal justice system. Sure they are criminals but they are most likely addicts first.
Once we get them out of the main stream criminal justice system we can send them to a locked d facility for detox and treatment. As I stated before we have about 15 State prison facilities and an equal number of County Jails.
We can easily convert some of the county facilities to drug treatment facilities.

These would be locked, with guards, albeit fewer than for a prison setting. We could increase the clinical and medical staff.

Special Drug Courts & Drug Prisons

A Person with an addiction problem would be screened by probation and diverted to drug court and then “Sentenced” to a drug treatment locked up.

This would get addicts out of the criminal justice system and they would have no record. That way once they are clean or cured they can get a job.

We have far too few treatment beds and far too many prison beds.

Our current strategy is not working. "Say No to Drugs" did not work and it is a major failure of the Regan Administration. Incarceration and punishment does not work. This may be simplified, but look at it this way: If someone gets cancer we don’t send them to prison. They go to a hospital.

The sooner we realize that drug addiction is a disease that can be treated, the better off as a society we will be.

Giorgio: Governor Baker & the Opiod Crisis

Related Slideshow: #50 to #1: Doctors in Worcester That Received the Most Money from Drug Companies

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