The conversation surrounding drug addiction is changing in the United States, and we’re now welcoming addicts with open hearts and ears.
However, is this change too little, too late? I am sure many addicts who are in jail for possession and trafficking would say it is.
Unfortunately, heroin is a word we hear a lot, too often in conjunction with the overdose or severe addiction of someone we know. That is largely due to heroin usage and deaths involving heroin’s “quadrupling since 2000,” according to the New York Times.
Drug addiction is usually characterized as an affliction of the lower class minorities in the U.S., but heroin addiction does not discriminate. It is currently a predominately white, middle class issue, although usage of the drug has risen among all demographics.
The New York Times claims “nearly 90 percent of people who have tried heroin in the last decade were white.” That’s definitely not the demographic most Americans would think of when analyzing heroin use.
Though the usage of heroin has increased among white demographics, the conversation surrounding the phenomenon is far less criminal and demonizing than the conversation surrounding minority heroin usage.
Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, claims the change in conversation is lead by the parents of white, middle class heroin users who feel politically empowered to make changes in the treatment of drug addiction.
“They know how to call a legislator, they know how to get angry with their insurance company, they know how to advocate,” he said.
It’s great the parents of children who have struggled with drug addiction are making the necessary moves to create change in the treatment of drug addiction.
However, only white, middle class parents are participating. What about the minority parents whose children also struggle with heroin addiction and were subsequently incarcerated for their drug-related crimes?
Luckily, the Justice Department is preparing to release roughly 6,100 inmates from federal prisons due to new and less severe sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug dealers. Of these prisoners, most are Hispanic and African-American men, according to npr.org. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told Congress “only 16 percent of federal prison inmates used a weapon in connection with their crime,” dispelling the myth that most federal inmates committed violent crimes.
It is hard to ignore the fact minority men are disproportionately incarcerated and sentenced for drug-related crimes. Although the white, middle class demographic is now the most affected by heroin addiction, the change in discourse from drug addiction’s being a crime to an illness has come at the expense of mass incarceration of minority drug dealers and users.
Kimberlè Williams Crenshaw, a specialist in racial issues at both Columbia and UCLA law schools, told the New York Times the change is more than welcome, “but one cannot help notice that, had this compassion existed for African-Americans caught up in addiction and the behaviors it produces, the devastating impact of mass incarceration upon entire communities would never have happened.”
I too agree this change is more than welcome, especially due to the large increase in heroin overdoses since 2000.
However, we need to analyze the origins of the change and what it reveals about our society.
rcm2@indiana.edu
@RachelCMiller1
