I live in a moderate-sized city in western Wisconsin, on the edge of the Minneapolis-St. Paul urban area. We're a college town, not wealthy, but fairly affluent by many standards.
This past week I got a peek into darkness. The darkness of methamphetamine, the damage to its victims, and our society trying to cope with the effects.
Follow me past the squiggle, if you will…
I’m part of a group that runs from our local high school two evenings a week. The high school marching band, especially the color guard, is almost always there practicing.
As I finished my run last week, at the end of a pretty hot day, I saw one of the band directors running across the parking lot, with one of the color guard following. In the distance, I saw an older man, unkempt, shuffling, carrying a bag. When a second band director came out of the building and joined the chase, I realized that something was up and followed.
Eventually we caught up with the older man, who I’ll call Paul (not his real name). He looked to be about 65-70 or more, with ratty gray hair, a grimy T-shirt and torn jeans. He appeared to be disoriented. He had taken the girl’s bag – overtly, in front of her and about 20 other girls – and just started walking away. The band directors took the bag away from him, and band director #1 walked him back to the school while calling 911. I stayed close by just to keep an eye on things.
Paul walked with a limp & slurred his words. Remember how he said he looked 65-70? He said he was 47! This man was five years younger than me, and he looked older than my father does.
When we got back to the school, he tried opening the doors of random cars in the parking lot. He was finally convinced to lie down in the shade, and our local police (3 cars) showed up. The first words from the first officer on the scene, a woman of about 35, were “Paul! We’ve been looking for you!”. It turns out Paul is well-known to our local police, and was a suspect in a theft an hour earlier.
The police tried talking to Paul, but his answers were incoherent. He appeared to be uncomfortable, not surprising since the temperature was in the low 90s; they tried asking him about what drugs he might have taken and how much and when… when they couldn’t get an answer out of him, they called paramedics. That’s when I left.
I will give credit to my police department. They were professional and respectful of Paul, even though it was clear that he was a repeat customer. When they weren’t sure if his health was at risk, they did the right thing and called for help.
I related my experience to a friend of mine, on the police force, a couple of days later. He laughed a sad laugh, saying something like “Yeah. Paul (full name). Been in jail about half his life.”
“Meth.”
One of Paul's previous crimes? He had tried to push a carton – a carton! – of squirtguns out of a store, muttering that he wanted to “get back” at someone who had squirted him with a squirtgun. Why did he take the girl’s bag? He couldn’t really say.
It turns out that Paul has been banned from nearly every commercial establishment in town. The police don’t know what to do with him. It appears he just walks away with stuff. Not even stuff he needs… just stuff.
I'm not advocate of the so-called war on drugs. I don't think that jailing more users is the answer.
And I'm not going to leave Paul in the clear. He was once young, and I'm sure full of promise. He was someone's son, someone's grandson, someone's friend. He made some bad decisions... but he didn't decide to become what he is now. His bad decisions led to other bad decisions... Now, he can't make decisions.
What do we do with people like Paul – a person who has been so messed up by meth that he doesn’t even know the difference between right and wrong, someone whose very survival is at risk. In some states, I’m sure that theft of squirtguns might be his “third strike” that would put him in jail forever. In some cities, I’m sure that he’d be a victim of those on the street who were only slightly more coherent.
I don’t have the answers. Do we incarcerate him? I don't see that as an answer. Commit him? Leave him & wait for him to score an OD or die of exposure? I'd like to say these decisions are "above my pay grade - but they're not. I'm a member of our county board of supervisors. I've taken an oath to "faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of (my) office to the best of my ability." Those duties include, as our state constitution spells out in its preamble, "secur(ing) the general welfare".
I’m not terribly religious, but one phrase from Matthew comes to mind:
Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.
4:11 PM PT: Thank you all for your comments, for all of you who shared your own experiences - I'm honored and humbled.
I am no fan of the war on drugs, and I think we spend far too many resources in this country going after the users. Having said that, I think that meth is in (almost) a league by itself in terms of the damage it can do to individual lives. We need to find a way to minimize its availability ("macro") and deal with its effects on individuals ("micro").
Thanks again.