It’s Not A Jail Thing…

I’m reading, and re-reading, Chasing The Scream by Johann Hari. It’s wildly compelling, but keep in mind that I liked Million Little Pieces by Frey when it came out. After I found out the book was mostly horseshit, I still liked it. But I pretended to be outraged. OUTRAGED, I TELL YOU! Yes, I still have a copy of that book. But I didn’t pay any attention to Frey or Oprah after that. You’re not going to get me twice. Come to think of it, I’m pretty easy to get twice.

I wonder how you feel about the war on drugs? I think I know and I’m sure I believe that the war on drugs is not actually a war on drugs, but a war on class and a war on color. Johann Hari peels back some interesting layers in support of this in her book. Did I mention it was wildly compelling? Wildly, as in, the author seems unaffected by things we have accepted as fact for decades. Wildly, as in, she is not coloring inside the lines at all. I’m uncomfortable with the book. Had I read it as a younger man, I would have discarded it and branded it as heresy within the first 20 pages. But one of the benefits of getting older is you get to make friends with being uncomfortable.

Our culture seems to be split on what to do with citizens that violate our drug laws. One group suggests we need to increase incarceration time with mandatory sentencing guidelines for persistent felony offenders. Another group suggests that incarceration perpetuates the environment necessary for addiction to flourish. I belong to the second group. 40 years ago I didn’t belong to either group, mainly because I didn’t think about it. I voted for Reagan because my Dad did. And my pastor did. So when Nancy joined the Just Say No crowd, I didn’t mind. I didn’t think about it. I used the slogan as my answer when I was asked if I used drugs: “No.” It never occurred to me that the program was reductive, or that it was ineffectual. But that was 40 years ago. Now I’m curious.

In 2021 the US had .06% of our population in cages. That’s damn near 20 million people. That’s a higher percentage than any other country on the planet! 33% of the caged are black (13% of the population is black). Hispanics represent 24% of the caged population (they make up 18% of the US population). 35% of the caged are white (out of 60% of the population). You could draw two conclusions from these statistics: First, people of color need to act better. Second, the primary goal of incarceration is not correction, it’s profit and control. If you came to the first conclusion, send me a letter in crayon why you think that.

According to NIDA, 85% of all caged individuals either meet the criteria for Substance Use Disorder or were under the influence of alcohol or drugs when they committed their offense. According to Larry, the cage is a really ineffective way of helping people with SUD. The inmate gets locked up and gets to detox in front of an uninformed audience. Then the inmate gets to serve out their punishment with no services to address their SUD or mental health issues.

You’re going to tell me they do have services in the prisons and jails. I’m sure they look good on paper. I know we spend a lot of taxpayer money on programs for inmates. But I’ve seen these programs. The federal programs can get some traction from time to time. The mental health and substance use programs in jails leave a lot to be desired. 65% of inmates report receiving no services for their mental health issues at all while incarcerated.

Once the caged get released, they find themselves in a culture that now makes it harder for them to get the same job they had before they were locked up. With fewer legitimate vocational opportunities, many turn back to the familiar. They know they’re going back in. A common thought among the caged is that they will leave money on their books (their account at the jail used for phone time and commissary) when they get released so it will be there when they get back. Many expect to go back. Guards routinely mock inmates at discharge with, “See you soon!” They’re not wrong about that. Incidentally, that’s not what I heard from someone or read in a Buzzfeed article. That’s what I saw. I have been caged and got to see first hand how inmates with SUD and drug related offenses are treated. And not treated. Especially mistreated. Abused, actually. Since I’m writing this at night and I’d like to sleep well, I don’t think I’ll talk more about what I saw when I was there. I’ll just call it maladaptive and leave it at that.

Well, maybe I’ll talk a little about it.

I found it well beyond ironic (“tragic” fits better) that society continues to call an environment “corrective” when actually the environment delivers experiences that will later require additional treatment to overcome. 25% of inmates report experiencing severe psychological distress while incarcerated. That’s about 4.5 million people. A pretty good analogy would be if, during the first week of NFL training camp, they broke the legs of the players. Now if that actually happened there would be outrage.

I was actually the exception in the cage: I belonged in there. I earned my bunk. I was there to be punished, and they achieved that goal. But punishment isn’t corrective. There wasn’t anything that happened to me in there that had any impact on my future behavior. I had extinguished that well before I went in.

My experience and time were limited, but it’s worth noting that every one of the inmates that I had an opportunity to talk to had four things in common. All of them. I didn’t keep track of numbers, but I’d estimate that was about a hundred people. The four things: 1. Drugs/Alcohol was a part of their story and a part of their incarceration. 2. They exhibited symptoms consistent with another mental health disorder. 3. They identified trauma and/or over 5 Adverse Childhood Experiences. 4. They had been incarcerated before. All of them. I guess the fifth thing they (we) had in common is we generated revenue for the government. It’s a $74 billion dollar a year industry. I can list 113 countries that have a lower combined GDP.

So I think I know and I’m sure I believe that the criminalization of substance use is mostly about profit and control. If it is about correction the war on drugs has been a colossal failure.

Here’s an example: Do you want to reduce marijuana use among adolescents? I do. Using THC during brain development is shown to have significant impact on individuals later in life. So we could look at Arizona. A small amount of THC can be classified as a felony. This state is tough on crime! Yet their adolescent use of THC is increasing, with 15% of adolescents reporting THC use in the last year. Then we could look at Colorado. I think we all know what Colorado thinks about THC use. I remember just before they legalized THC for recreational use a lot of us (me included) were wringing our hands, imagining youths running amuck in the streets, crazed with reefer madness. OK, I didn’t go that far, but I was wringing my hands. But adolescent THC in the last 12 months is actually dropping. They’re at 13%. Go figure.

Remember the D.A.R.E. program? That cost the US somewhere in the neighborhood of $1-1.3 billion dollars. Over a half a dozen independent studies all found the same conclusion about that program: D.A.R.E. had no effect on reducing the use of alcohol or drugs among children and adolescents. Turns out Colorado legalizing THC had a greater impact on reducing adolescent THC use. And that generated income for the state. When it comes to human behavior, pinning down causation is a tricky proposition. So I’m not absolutely sure that legalizing THC had a direct impact on the reduction of use. But something rings true about that for me. In my quest to explore my autonomy as an adolescent, it was not uncommon for me (and my friends) to occasionally look for established rules and push against them. Pretty standard teenage stuff. Pretty standard human behavior, actually.

I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this. So am I, really. I don’t know. I think I know and I’m sure I believe that what we’ve been doing since Prohibition to curb the use of drugs and alcohol in order to keep our society safer has been a dismal, abject failure. I think I know and I’m sure I believe that caged treatment of SUD not only doesn’t work, it creates fresh trauma that fuels a co-occurring disorder in the individual and gives them fresh material that requires further numbing, and illicit chemicals are waiting to fill that bill. Actually, being incarcerated increases the likelihood of future incarcerations.

Speaking of “bill,” if you’re interested in Kentucky politics, you can check out a review of HB 5 here.

I keep telling you that “I think I know” because I used to “really know” and that was my greatest crime: To declare with absolute certainty a tenet that had humanity as one of its variables.

Now they really ought to lock people up for that.