Gina Raimondo
Amid reports that Gov. Raimondo is planning on signing Kristen’s Law (H 7715)—a bill passed in the House last week which mandates a life sentence for individuals who sell controlled substances involved in fatal overdoses—many are saying that the bill will only increase the number of overdose deaths, including one of the governor’s own appointees to the team dedicated to reducing fatal overdoses in the state.
In an interview on Tuesday, Dr. Josiah “Jody” Rich from the Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force, told RI Future that Kristen’s Law won’t decrease overdoses. Instead, it will “take away the focus of what we really need to be doing with this epidemic.”
Made up of stakeholders from public safety agencies, recovery support services, insurance professionals, and public health researchers, among others, the Task Force was established by Gov. Raimondo in 2015 to develop a “comprehensive strategy to combat addiction and overdose” in Rhode Island. Dr. Rich, a professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, serves as an expert advisor on the team.
“It almost magnifies the addiction,” he said. “Every time you arrest someone, you make their addiction worse. You’re making their risk of overdose worse if you lock them up and take away their tolerance, and then release them, particularly now that there’s fentanyl in the supply. So you’re increasing the risk of overdose deaths with this capture, recapture system that we have. And we’re not getting people to stop using.”
Dr. Rich explained that a better path for Rhode Island would be to “ramp up” treatment in the state. He pointed to a program initiated by the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (DOC) in 2016, which screens incarcerated individuals for drug addiction and provides medication-assisted treatment (MAT), In less than a year since the start of the program, the DOC reported a 61 percent drop in overdose deaths for individuals post-incarceration, and a 12 percent drop in overdose deaths statewide.
“That program would be nothing without continuation on the outside,” Dr. Rich added. “We need to roll these medicines out and encourage people to take them.”
Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU, expressed concern that heightened penalties would only deter individuals from asking for help in the case of an overdose. “It’s placing a lot of faith in the criminal justice system to pick up the phone to try and help somebody having an overdose knowing that you potentially face a life sentence in prison if things go the wrong way,” Brown said.
Proponents have argued that Kristen’s Law is targeted at prosecuting “drug kingpins,” but both Dr. Rich and Brown expressed skepticism that the bill actually provides for that goal. A provision was introduced on the House floor to prevent Kristen’s Law from being applied to those suffering from drug addiction themselves, but this stipulation was not included in the final version of the House’s bill. “Without that,” Brown said, “we think the door is wide open for individuals who share drugs with a friend, a family member—where a small amount of money has changed hands or some other exchange has occurred—and that puts them well within the scope of the bill.”
The governor’s apparent support for the bill has distraught some in the recovery community, including Michael Galipeau, current interim president of the Rhode Island User’s Union. Speaking on his own behalf, he told RI Future, “My reaction to the governor’s support is exactly what I told the governor’s office: if she signs this bill into law, I will actively work with the Matt Brown campaign to make sure that he’s the one to take the office next.”
“If she’s not going to take this seriously,” Galipeau said, “then we need somebody else in office.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Kristen’s Law on Wednesday at 4pm in room 313 of the State House.
I firmly believe the state has an obligation to provide clean, safe opiates to the addicted while making effective consensual addiction treatment available with the emphasis on the word “consensual”.
We do not deny alcoholics access to their drug of choice. Is alcoholism any less debilitating than opioid addiction? I’ve known many of both – alcohol addicts and opioid addicts. It seems to me alcoholism is far more debilitating. If alcoholism isn’t far more debilitating then I doubt it is any less debilitating. So, why are opioid addicts punished for their illness in ways that alcoholics are not?
We live in the age of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. The governor’s stand on this issue is very neoliberal, a vestige of the Rockefeller approach to the same problem in the early Seventies. The Rockefeller Republicans have taken over the state Democratic Party here. The same influences that brought us the moral obligation bond are responsible for this draconian approach that has grown out of the victim rights movement, pretty much built on the heroin epidemic of the 1970s and really ramped up by other prominent “victims rights” groups who operate on an eye for an eye basis . The only thing such public has given us stricter and harsher public policy that overflows our prisons and bloats the “social service” sector.
The victim impact statement which has introduced theater into the courtrooms, along with tv cameras that were never allowed before the War on Drugs commenced will further degrade our system of justice as it has since the 1970s. This problem is far worse than it looks.
On the horizon – social impact investing. Without the social problems where will the profit lie for the social impact investor? The War on Drugs is nothing more than a vicious circle. Is there really a will to break the cycle? How many would find themselves out of a job if that cycle were broken – not only in law enforcement but a social service establishment that thrives on non consensual “treatment”? The current approach has severely corrupted our legal system and funded some of the most biased science by interests whose only concern is that their conclusions are confirmed through studies designed to validate those conclusions before any data has even been collected.
“The scientists found alcohol was most harmful, with a score of 72, followed by heroin with 55 and crack with 54.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-drugs-alcohol/drug-experts-say-alcohol-worse-than-crack-or-heroin-idUSTRE6A000O20101101
Where is the leadership? All the most highly regarded education the world has to offer and still ignoring all the best evidence. What is that an indication of? It’s worse than sad that people won’t demand more.
I’m not sure if I mean opiates or opioids. An opiate falls under the classification of opioids but not the opposite. I find the distinction interesting. I found this distinction:
“Some examples of synthetic opioids include the prescription painkillers hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (OxyContin), as well as fentanyl and methadone.”
I think I might have meant opiates. My next question – does anyone own patents on the naturally derived opioids? I think it’s relevant.
I have no medical or scientific background but I try to correct myself when I fail to make the correct distinction where classifications like these are involved. I find the medical community regularly disregards the logic involved in such classification.
Some of the most highly trained physicians I have come across fail to make a distinction between progesterone, progestins, and progestogens.
This has resulted in very bad science all around, specifically the Women’s Health Initiative study which was done w/out any controls as a result of pharmaceutical company pressure to promote, exclusively, patented pharmaceutical products. C’est la vie when market imperatives drive the so called science:
“There appears to be a lot of confusion around the group name for progestational
agents. In 1976 Dalton [3] argued that progesterone should not be confused
with or considered the same as progestins (synthetic progestogens). Yet in
2009 it appears they are still being confused.”
https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/progesterone-or-progestogen-or-progestin-which-it
So much “science” is really anti-science “science”.
A Consciousness Revolution
is taking place, just as it did in the late ’60’s.
People earnestly want
things to be different.
Maybe you can’t change the World.
Play some vinyl.
Ride a bike with fat tires.
Play Steppenwolf in your headphones.
Graduate to Revolver,
why don’tcha?
An Ant:
Yes, lefty,
that’s exactly right.
My whole colony lived for years in the Liberty Elm.
Play Steppenwolf, why don’tcha?