Heroin overdoses happen multiple times a day in the county I live in. So much so that the OD revival drug Narcan is now carried by almost every segment of the first responder community. Some private citizens even carry it.
The drug heroin now being trafficked across the nation is being cut with Fentanyl, a very powerful opioid used to treat patients for pain immediately after surgery.
Why?
Because it enhances the 'high' so intensely that the user wants more. Sooner. Thus, more overdoses. More deaths.
I had the opportunity to have an extended conversation with a sitting Common Pleas judge, a man I've known for around twenty years, about sentencing of heroin traffickers....and drug traffickers in general a few months ago. I told him how it infuriates me that a person either convicted of or pleading to trafficking in heroin generally gets probation on a first offense, yet someone who is a deadbeat parent that has fallen far behind in child support payments gets jail time. Not that the deadbeat doesn't deserve it, but how much crime does a deadbeat cause compared to a heroin dealer?
Home and business break-ins happen almost hourly. Robberies and thefts are on the increase. Families are being torn apart and our health care system, along with ambulance and rescue squad crews, are taxed to the limit. Drug enforcement units can't actively investigate drug trafficking because they frequently are called upon to respond to overdose calls in order to attempt to ascertain where the user bought their heroin. Most times, they won't talk.
The judge told me that, due to current sentencing guidelines, there's no presumption of prison time for first-time offenders. Our prisons are full, so probation is the answer. In other words, the judge's hands are tied by the legislature.
That needs to change. Now, as soon as possible. My thoughts? First-time heroin traffickers get a mandatory one-year sentence. Period. No plea deals, no early release. Second offense gets them five years. The third? Life, with possibility of parole after twenty years.
If the public seriously wants to cut crime, this needs to happen. Contact your representatives, let them know that we cannot...will not...stand for this tsunami of crime caused by heroin addiction. The addicts? Get them the help they need. Dry up their sources.
Now.
