"Holder endorses proposal to ease drug sentencing; Says change would cut costs, boost fairness" by Eric Tucker | Associated Press March 14, 2014
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday endorsed a proposal that would result in shorter prison sentences for many nonviolent drug traffickers, saying the change would rein in runaway federal prison costs and create a fairer criminal justice system.
Holder’s backing for a Sentencing Commission proposal to lower the guideline penalties is part of a broader Justice Department effort to lessen punishment for nonviolent drug dealers. He has been pressing to ease long mandatory sentences and calling for greater discretion for judges in sentencing.
‘‘This focused reliance on incarceration is not just financially unsustainable — it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate,’’ Holder said in an appearance before the Sentencing Commission, an independent agency that establishes sentencing policies.
With nearly half of all federal inmates serving time for drug crimes, the United States should reserve the harshest penalties for violent drug defendants and those with extensive criminal records, Holder said.
Holder directed prosecutors in August to stop charging many nonviolent drug defendants with offenses that carry mandatory minimum sentences. He has also said he wants to divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community-service programs and to expand a prison program to allow the release of some elderly, nonviolent offenders.
Bipartisan legislation pending in Congress would give judges more discretion in sentences for drug crimes.
The attorney general last year asked the commission to consider reductions in the sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug crimes. The commission responded with a proposal in January that would tie many drug offenses to shorter sentencing ranges.
The effect, the Justice Department says, would be to reduce by 11 months the average sentence of a drug dealer and would trim the federal prison population by roughly 6,550 inmates at the end of five years. The proposal would affect about 70 percent of drug trafficking offenders.
‘‘I understand that people feel a sort of tension in this notion that we’re going to spend less, we’re going to put people in jail for smaller amounts of time, and yet you’re going to tell me that we’re going to be more safe,’’ Holder said in response to a question about whether the proposal could compromise public safety. ‘‘And yet, the empirical studies that I have seen, and which I have faith in, indicate that if done appropriately those are in fact the results that you can get.’’
The commission was not expected to vote on the proposed change until at least April.
Holder’s announcement won support from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, which decried what it called the ‘‘failed, racially biased war on drugs.’’ But a national association of prosecutors is opposing the proposal, arguing that mandatory sentences have been helpful in securing cooperation from defendants and witnesses.
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It's making the things a nightmare for the state court system, never you mind the victims.
Also see: Holder on Heroin
It's his favorite.
"Taunton surpasses 100 heroin overdoses so far this year" by Laura Crimaldi | Globe staff March 13, 2014
Taunton marked a grim milestone Wednesday, as the number of heroin overdoses reported in the city since January surpassed 100 for the first time, a health official said.
Authorities went to two units in the same apartment building within an hour Wednesday morning to assist two women who had overdosed, said Jennifer Bastille, a Safe Neighborhood adviser at the city’s Department of Human Services. Those incidents brought the overdose toll to 101 since the beginning of 2014, she said.
Bastille added that both women had overdosed before.
“It’s frustrating, and it’s sad,” said Mayor Tom Hoye. “Nobody sets out to be a drug addict. It’s unfortunate that it’s happening.”
The latest overdoses occurred after 12 others had been reported in Taunton between Friday and Tuesday, including that of one man who overdosed twice during that period, Bastille said. There have been seven suspected heroin deaths in the city so far this year.
Bastille blamed the overdoses on heroin laced with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller.
“It’s fair to say that 99 percent of what’s triggering these overdoses is the fentanyl,” she said. “The fentanyl stops you from breathing.”
Cities and towns across Massachusetts are facing an uptick in heroin overdoses. At least 185 people died of suspected overdoses between Nov. 1 and Feb. 24, according to a state tally....
Police in the Taunton area arrested four people on heroin-related charges late last week, but substance abusers were still able to find the narcotic, officials said.
“We did have a good amount of heroin taken off the streets, but clearly it’s still out there,” Bastille said.
On Friday, police seized 36 grams of heroin, 129 grams of cocaine, and $4,700 in cash during a search of a Taunton apartment, Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for Sutter, said.
Robert Cananzey, 28, was charged with trafficking in heroin and cocaine and ordered held on $50,000 bail, officials said.
His defense lawyer, Kenneth Fredette, said Cananzey did not enter a plea. He declined to comment further.
The same day, police arrested two people after they found small amounts of heroin and cocaine, baggies, scales, cutting agents, and drug ledgers at a home in Taunton, Miliote said.
Mark Mayers, 38, was charged with heroin and cocaine-related offenses, police records show. Meredith Kirby, 29, was charged with drug possession and being present where heroin is kept, police said.
Messages left for their lawyers were not returned.
In addition, State Police arrested Brockton resident Derick Lorenzi after seizing 31 grams of heroin during a traffic stop Thursday night in Raynham, Miliote said. Lorenzi’s lawyer, Daniel Rich, said he could not comment because he had met only briefly with Lorenzi.
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"Heroin epidemic exposes deficiencies in care system" by Laura Crimaldi | Globe staff March 15, 2014
A surge in heroin overdoses in Massachusetts has exposed a complicated and overburdened substance abuse treatment system with demand for recovery beds chronically outpacing supply, insurance covering only a few services, and families increasingly turning to courts for help.
Complaints about a lack of beds and high treatment costs for long-term care have intensified as the number of people hooked on powerful opiates has taxed the system further, despite state figures that show a 27 percent boost in funding for substance abuse services since fiscal 2008.
The toll exacted by heroin has become lethally evident in recent months....
The Department of Public Health said it could not provide historical data about availability of treatment beds because its licensing system was not computerized until last year. But an annual survey of treatment providers conducted by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found....
Despite the demand, industry executives said their operations often struggle financially. The state, which covers stays in recovery homes, pays a daily rate of $75 a bed, which represents just 63 percent of the actual cost of serving a patient for a day, said Robert Monahan, executive director of South Shore Recovery Home in Quincy and president of Recovery Homes Collaborative of Massachusetts.
As a result, Monahan said, “You can’t pay your people. You can’t give them health insurance. The buildings are usually in residential areas so they’re old. You can’t put the new roof on the house.”
Increasingly, addicts and their families are becoming so desperate for inpatient treatment that they turn to a state law that empowers judges to civilly commit substance abusers to facilities where they can get immediate help, according to treatment providers, public and elected officials, and advocates.
“The fact that people have to get their loved ones locked up to ensure access to treatment is unconscionable,” DiGravio said.
In the past eight years, civil commitments made under a law known as Section 35 grew by 67 percent, from 2,982 to 4,982, according to testimony delivered to a state Senate panel by Hilary Jacobs, director of the state’s Bureau of Substance Abuse Services.
People deemed a risk to themselves or to others because of addiction can be committed by a judge to up to three months in an inpatient substance abuse treatment facility. An addict or the addict’s family or friends can seek a commitment order.
“If you’re sick and you’re detoxing and you want help, sometimes it’s much faster to come down to the courthouse,” said Judge Rosemary Minehan, who leads the District Court Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse.
The state maintains just 198 beds in the community for users who have been civilly committed. If those beds are full, addicts are instead sent to correctional facilities, even though they have not been charged with a crime.
Related: Cleaning Up the Messier
From fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2013, the number of women committed at MCI-Framingham, the state’s only prison for women, increased from 41 to 286, according to testimony written by Department of Correction Commissioner Luis S. Spencer.
For men, commitments to the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater increased from 963 to 1,278, between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2013, Spencer said.
Jeanne Flynn of Bourne said she successfully petitioned courts in August and November to get her 25-year-old son, Brian, treatment for a heroin addiction. Both times, he was sent to Bridgewater, Flynn said. But he still wants more treatment.
What a mess is that place.
“There’s never anything available right away unless you want to pay big money,” Flynn said. “If you pay big money, you’ll have something today, and it’s so critical that you have something today.”
In January, Senate President Therese Murray appointed a special committee to investigate the use of the civil commitment law and drug abuse treatment options. The committee is holding a hearing Monday at Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner.
“Families are utilizing the Section 35 process as a last resort because they don’t know where else to go,” said state Senator Jennifer L. Flanagan, a Democrat from Leominister, who is leading the committee.
Flanagan described a fragmented substance abuse treatment system in which beds for detox, the first step some addicts take to getting clean, are covered by insurance and generally available.
But beds for longer-term care, which is credited with keeping people off drugs, are in short supply and paid for by the state, rather than insurance, which does not cover such treatment.
The committee led by Flanagan is charged with developing recommendations to improve substance abuse treatment services.
While the gap between supply and demand is wide in Massachusetts, it’s even wider in most other states, Jacobs said....
Governor Deval Patrick’s administration is credited by advocates and providers for boosting spending on substance abuse treatment services. Since 2008, spending increased by nearly 27 percent, from $82.1 million to $104 million, state figures show.
But the extra money is seen as inadequate by some advocates. “Increases can’t keep up with the demand,” said Maryanne Frangules, executive director of the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery. “They’re doing the best they can with what they have. It’s skeletal.”
Jacobs, who manages substance abuse services for the state, acknowledged that some addicts are denied access to inpatient care when they seek it.
But she said that in many cases, heroin abusers can consider treatment that does not include an inpatient stay.
Medications available on an outpatient basis have proven to be the most effective and are more accessible, she said.
The medications for opiate addiction include methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, Jacobs said.
More than 16,000 people used methadone in December, and most of the locations did not have waiting lists, she said.
Still, Jacobs said medications are not used as much as they could be for opiate addictions because of stigmas attached to them, she said.
“There are things besides beds that are effective in this system,” Jacobs said. “More people should see this treatment as a viable option.”
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They still haven't found where the killer heroin is coming from, and they aren't even bothering to ask or look.
