Some Aspects of Laree’s Law Questioned

To the Editor:

(Sept. 14, 2015) This letter concerns a recent law passed by the Senate named Laree’s Law.  Although I agree with many aspects of this new bill, being a former drug addict and dealer, I have to disagree with others.  Many of the terms I disagree with are extreme punishments for dealers, such as the ability to imprison them from 15 to 25 years if they sold to someone who dies of an overdose.  Although there were many other parts to this bill that were deeply explained in detail, this aspect was not.

Some things I would like to bring to your attention are: what if the victim, as we will call them, had intentionally killed themselves by means of overdose? Would the dealer in question be to blame?  What if it was purely accidental?  Individuals who use for the first time out of a treatment center are more likely to die of an overdose due to miscalculation in tolerance.

Speaking from experience and for many other drug dealers, I sold to feed my addiction.  I did it because I couldn’t hold a job to pay for my using.  If someone were to harm themselves from the heroin they ultimately obtained from me, then that was the life they chose to live.  It may be a choice at first, but then it becomes a need; a craving that can never be fulfilled.

Even after intense inpatient treatment and four years clean from heroin, there are still times when I feel the need to use.  But these feelings can be dealt with by meetings, counseling and the help and support from friends and family.  It just shows that I, and others like me, are sick people and we need help, not stuffed away in the prison system forever forgotten.  We are still human beings.

Section S.631 of Laree’s Law explains establishing assisted outpatient treatment for substance abuse disorders.  A specific treatment plan is definitely in order but it fails to mention anything about an inpatient treatment.   Getting the addicts off the street and away from illegal substances helps dramatically.  The inability to obtain the drug is the most effective way to no longer use.

In an article by Times Union published in 2014, with Laree’s mother Lincoln, she explained that her daughter only used heroin for a short period of four months.  And within those four months she only had one month of rehab, all at different times.  This is not a significant amount of time to detox, learn why you started to use in first place, grow and learn about yourself and combat ways to fight the ongoing addiction.  We need to push for intense long term inpatient before even attempting outpatient treatment.  This pertains to the dealers as well, who are also fighting addiction.  Longtime imprisonment is not the answer.

Lincoln also states that her daughter had also used alcohol and marijuana as well and minimizes it as if it’s not as serious as heroin.  Minimizing is a term used in rehabilitation centers where addicts make excuses of how their addiction is not as bad as another person or uses excuses as to why they use.  For example, people who use alcohol tend to minimize their addiction compared to a heroin user because alcohol is legal and heroin is not.  In reality, people who have an addiction to heroin have had, or do have, a substance abuse problem with other drugs, such as alcohol and marijuana (CNN 2014).  Which leaves the question, why are we so involved in the heroin epidemic and not in the gateway drugs that lead us there?

According to her mother, Laree was also taking Suboxone at the treatment center she was housed in.  This drug has been explained as an opiate blocker.  Meaning, if someone is actively taking Suboxone and uses any opiate, they will not get high.  But after using Suboxone, or similar drugs such as methadone, you can ultimately get high off of them alone.  Speaking from experience, I have used both as a means to become high.  I have also seen a friend in outpatient treatment with me on the Suboxone plan that was nodding out in class, but was perfectly acceptable because it was prescribed.  Just as prescription painkillers are okay to abuse because they are prescribed.  Not anymore, same concept.

Those opiate blockers cannot even be given to an addict within their first few days of detox anyways.  Rehabs are required to wait 3 to 5 days, when symptoms of withdrawal subside to even prescribe them.  So what’s the point?  Once recovering addicts are on the plan they don’t truly need it for withdrawal and they are kept on it for sometimes years.  Causing them to abuse it or sell it.  Isn’t this what we are trying to prevent?

That being said, section S.4239B of Laree’s Law states that rehabilitation centers will not require recovering addicts to be weaned off the Suboxone or methadone treatment plans.  This is a scary thought knowing that it can be used in the same way as an opiate and actually has the same effect and feeling.  These opiate blockers are a drug, just like heroin, just like alcohol, just like cocaine.  A drug is a substance that alters the mind and/or body.  If recovering addicts continue to take a drug, are they really overcoming substance abuse?

So by passing this law, we are trying to save many people from the addiction of heroin and sometimes its death.  An opiate dealer, most likely also a victim of addiction, will be sent to jail first, then prison for 20 years, because someone has accidently died from an overdose.  Now here is an example of an addict who will not be getting the help they deserve.  Their family is most likely torn apart and feels as if they have lost a family member as well.

According to insideprison.com in 2006, suicide is ranked number one for deaths in county jails and number three in prisons.  That is higher than people in the general public.  And many of those who commit suicide in the system are suffering from substance abuse.  In 2011, it was recorded that 5.5% or 185 people in the system committed suicide (NBC news 2013).  Although we are trying to save people, there will still be deaths.  Prison is not always the answer.

I firmly believe in the Shock Incarceration Program.  I attended Shock from November 2012 – May 2013 and it was an unbelievable experience.  It pushed me to my limits and to my breaking point.  I had never been to a rehab before so I learned many new things about myself and facts about drug addiction in general, and all around how humans behave and how their brains work.  There should be more facilities like that and more people should be allowed to go.

It was a grueling six months, but inspirational and amazing.  I was a drug dealer and I was given the opportunity to rehabilitate myself with help from counselors, friends, family and hard work.  Any punishment over three years is not automatic entrance into Shock.  Addicts with 15 years or more sentences will not be able to participate and will not get the help they deserve and it could end in suicide.

There is one thing we need to understand about the disease of addiction and the world of drugs.  Addiction will never truly go away.  And neither will drugs.  There will always be a way to get them and there will always be something new.  Addiction affects people in different ways such as overeating, shopping and gambling.  It will be a growing pandemic forever, but we can make steps to improve it.  Although I didn’t fully agree with everything in Laree’s Law, I believe we are on the correct path to prevent more deaths in our state, country and maybe even the world.

Molly Frink, Oneida