Looking over the criminal docket for the Marion County Circuit Court term that began this week raises a question: Is there anyone in Marion County who is not on drugs?
We’re exaggerating, of course, but the number of narcotics-related cases are staggering and show that Marion County has been hit by the opioid epidemic, as well as widespread meth problems, as hard as any place.
Out of 93 total cases, 45 of them involve drug charges, mostly possession. That’s 48 percent.
And beyond that, there are burglaries and shootings that often have drugs as the root cause.
That level of drug-related cases in the local courts is not unusual. District Attorney Hal Kittrell, in a story published in this newspaper last year, estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of their case load could be attributed to drugs either directly or indirectly.
This brings major costs to society: Drug users aren’t contributing positively through jobs or community activities, creating a shortage of qualified employees and volunteers. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors are forced to spend the majority of their time on drug-related cases. Children end up in broken homes, overwhelming the foster care system. Court cases take forever to work their way through from arrest to sentencing because the courts are overwhelmed with the number of drug cases they have to deal with.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any easy solutions to this crisis or communities all over the United States facing the same issues would be doing them already.
Drug courts have some promise, in that they allow drug users to get clean while working rather than being a drain on the taxpayers in prison, although there is a potential for abuse, especially if dealers are allowed in the programs.
Attempts to stop the supply of particular drugs has worked at times, but it seems the drug dealers always find a way around either with another narcotic or bringing it from somewhere else. For example, a 2010 Mississippi law requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine (brand name Sudafed), which is a required ingredient for making meth, dramatically reduced the number of meth houses in the state. However, Sudafed can still be bought in surrounding states and either brought here to make meth or made there and sold here.
Even if the supply of one particular drug is stanched, there always seems to be something new as an alternative way to get high.
Longer sentences for drugs would be a deterrent, but then the prisons would be overflowing again and the state’s budget would be further tightened from providing services for law-abiding citizens like roads and bridges.
Meanwhile, the courts are left to play the hand they’re dealt as best they can. Hopefully someone will come up with an innovative idea soon that will offer some relief.
— Charlie Smith
