Had the man and woman who overdosed on heroin in East Liverpool, Ohio crashed their SUV into a school bus, it’s doubtful they would have made the national news.
But they didn’t hit the school bus. A police officer took two photos of them, passed out in their vehicle, with a 4-year-old boy in the backseat. The East Liverpool Police Department did something courageous and useful with the pictures: They posted them on Facebook.
Then the condemnation began. Not for drug addicts who endanger the public. Not for drug dealers who push addiction. But for the police.
“Is this about shaming the guardians of this child? Is it about shaming them or shaming the public for not doing more about this epidemic?” NPR’s Audie Cornish asked East Liverpool Police Chief John Lane.
The questions themselves, and the tone of her voice, sounded like she was leveling shame against the police for posting the pictures. Shaming the police has become a safe sport in the media.
Chief Lane told Cornish the photos were not about shaming.
“I think it’s just to make people aware of – this is how bad this drug is,” he said. “What grandmother willingly puts their 4-year-old grandson into a car knowing they’re going to take this drug and possibly OD like they did?”
His answer was too polite.
What’s wrong with shame? Sometimes it’s deserved.
I’ve known drug addicts who turned their shame into the power to change. That’s preferable to those who embrace their addiction as a disease, wearing it as a badge of something they endured through no fault of their own.
Unless someone accidentally ingests a drug or was prescribed a drug that chemically altered their brain cells, he or she made a choice that first time. Why a person chooses to use drugs deserves to be considered and judged. Did the person want to feel good? Or follow along with what other people were doing? Was the person curious? In pain? If so, what kind of pain?
Whatever defense you want to make for drugs (even heroin has a legitimate medical use), look at the photo of the little boy in the backseat and the adults unconscious, their mouths hanging open. What about him?
I used to enter the lives of kids like him when I worked as a reporter in San Bernardino, Calif., and later as a court-appointed special advocate for children in protective custody.
Kids live in drug houses. Undoubtedly, their mothers “love” them. Maybe even their fathers do, too. Sometimes love can be worthless.
San Bernardino cops once let me into a drug house soon after arrests had been made, and before there was any cleanup.
First, there was the smell, a gagging odor of decay. The electricity had long been shut off, and the warm refrigerator was teeming with life. Pots and pans coated with decaying crud were strewn on the counter tops and on the floor along with empty cartons and cans.
In a sight I would see in similar homes, on other occasions, was a pyramid-shaped pile of dry dog food, as if someone had taken a 40-pound bag and dumped it on the floor – perhaps figuring they wouldn’t have to remember to feed the family pet. Every corner in the house had a collection of cockroaches, dead and alive. Furniture was in disarray. Clothing scattered on the floor throughout the rooms, the closets empty.
In the midst of all this chaos was a bright, white piece of paper on the living room floor. I picked it up and turned it over to see what it was. It was an award from an elementary school for perfect attendance. A child lived in this home.
A good defense attorney would use something like a perfect attendance record to prove his client’s love and care for her child: She was so committed to her child she made sure he went to school everyday. I’m inclined to think the kid found school much preferable to home.
The attorneys for Rhonda L. Pasek, 50, and James Lee Accord, 47, will likely argue that their clients loved their 4-year-old grandson. Again, so what? They allowed themselves to love drugs even more.
It wouldn’t surprise me if these grandparents were taking care of their grandchild because the boy’s parents had drug problems.
After I left San Bernardino and returned to the Pacific Northwest, I volunteered in Clark County, Washington for a couple of years as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for children in foster care. The 14 children assigned to me all had parents with drug problems.
Washington, like most states, is committed to “family preservation.” Once a child enters state protective care there are first attempts to locate a responsible relative who can take care of the child, while the state wraps the parents in various services to regain custody of their children.
However, the state cannot create families. A male and female have sex (not to be confused with making love), produce a child, then can’t raise the child because their various addictions have made them irresponsible and child-like. There are children in foster care who will grow up before their parents do.
Worse, I learned from long-time advocates and foster parents that they were seeing second-generation kids in the system. You can’t preserve a family that never existed.
One of the fathers of four children assigned to me had kids and grandkids in state custody. The wife of his younger children told me how she went from a middle-class upbringing in Salem, Ore., to an addict on welfare.
One day her husband, who could never keep a job, came home and told her, “Try this.”
It was meth.
Later, when he was in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, I interviewed him about his children and wife. Why did he give his wife meth?
“Lady, I don’t have to answer that.”
What I really wanted to ask him was, “Were you looking for a better blowjob?”
This is the problem with our drug “epidemic” whether it’s street drugs or pharmaceuticals. Whatever problem you’ve got, whatever pain, misery, disappointment, anxiety – here, take this.
One of the best drug educators I dealt with in San Bernardino was a long-time meth addict (“til death do us part”) who gleefully described to me how he injected meth into a new girlfriend for the first time.
“I slammed her, she grabbed her crotch and fell to her knees!”
This fellow was proud of what he’d done. Years earlier, he had shared the same story with his court-ordered psychiatrist, and the doctor was intrigued. This could lead to help for women with trouble having orgasms, the doctor told him.
We make so many excuses for drug use. We’ve turned “dope” into a slang term meaning something good. Anyone who criticizes our reliance on drugs is branded a “prohibitionist.” That’s where the shame is now. It’s very uncool to criticize drugs. Is there anything worse in American culture than being uncool?
Even President Barack Obama has reassured us that drug dealers are not violent, that they are worthy of our compassion.
In Oregon, we now have marijuana capitalists looking to create bigger and better highs. Check out this enthusiastic review in Willamette Week for a strain called Green Crack. (What could possibly be wrong with turning marijuana into something like crack.)
Drugs are ingrained in popular culture. How many of our best jazz musicians have had drug problems? Movie stars? Rock stars? Hip-hop artists? Sports stars? Writers?
How many heroin addicts working on a book last century thought they were going to be the next William S. Burroughs? This century, how many heroin addicts reassure themselves: Cheryl Strayed would have never written “Wild” if she hadn’t been a heroin addict first.
I loved “Wild.” I doubt if Strayed’s creativity, strength and tenacity can be traced to heroin. Kicking heroin and changing her life while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail gave her a story, but a writer of her talent will always find a story.
As for Rhonda L. Pasek and James Lee Accord, it’s unlikely they will be hitting the Pacific Crest Trail.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
Related:
“Were you looking for a better blowjob?”
Funny. Sad. True.
Shame has petty much always worked for me.
I hated being seen as a buffoon. I was never seen as a beggar (barely). That shame would’ve killed me or allowed me to kill myself more directly than with drugs and alcohol.
I’ve known men and women who went through the treatment programs several times and finally got it. However, I think the endless cycle, expense, and care of treatment has demonstrated the terrible limitations of that route.
Which leaves shame and punishment. Which I suspect are more effective and less expensive.
Were you around some years back when young couple who were heroin addicts hung themselves from a downtown bridge? It seemed like an attempt to shame the community for not rescuing them. Myself, I thought it was a pretty good message to would-be dope fiends. And, I’ve always suspected self-rescue was for the best could it be effected.
We live in mighty obtuse times though, and I think the self-pity of the suicide worked as intended: Multnomah county’s soul-searching ensued, and the population of dope fiends expanded.
Modern medicaments do some good: use an anti-depressant myself. Used antabuse for a while, too. I did not want anymore trouble and humiliation.
I’ve read much about 19th century life and am beginning to believe the population of much of the Western world was drunk to some degree most of the time.
As an aside, when firearms were not as available as they are now the result was an astonishing frequency of axe and knife slaughters. A good axe man could do a family of six before breakfast and have the balance of the day to consider his fellow citizens. Don’t get me started on women and the availability of arsenic, another readily available medicine.
If I had it to do over again I would do one more edit and two more proofreads.
Your sentiments came through fine even with a few typos (the editor in me took over and fixed some of them, since you raised the issue).
I was still working in California when the couple killed themselves on the Steel Bridge, but a check of news archives corroborates your assessment: “Multnomah county’s soul-searching ensued, and the population of dope fiends expanded.”
Michael Douglas, the male half of the suicide couple, left behind a 13-page letter laying out why they were killing themselves. I have to wonder if Douglas’ fiance, Mora McGowan, was pressured into going along.
You might be right about the use of alcohol in the 19th Century. Had heroin been readily available — with no cultural restraints — we could’ve had a heroin epidemic back then.
I understand it’s human nature to avoid all kinds of pain, but what happens if you go to the other extreme? You end up with: If it feels good, do it.
Yesterday, USA Today’s top headline was “Justice Dept. to confront heroin crisis.” This time there will be greater emphasis on “over-prescribing doctors.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is quoted as saying, “I’m not calling anybody out. …”
At some point, the focus needs to shift to WHY our culture loves to say yes to drugs, and WHO is encouraging it. I doubt if it is primarily over-prescribing doctors.
You damn fucking piece of shit. Just retire because your generation caused all the problems you get paid to bitch about. You are not close to objective.
First, I don’t get paid to write this — or, as you put it, paid to bitch. I maintain this site at my own expense and on my own time. As you might have noticed, the site carries no advertising.
Second, I worked for years as a newspaper reporter where we aimed for “objectivity.” There were times when my colleagues and I would file stories that were objective but not necessarily truthful, because we avoided addressing certain issues or asking certain questions — sometimes at the requests of editors, who also had their marching orders. Sometimes it was because newspapers are too careful in not wanting to offend readers.
The truth can be offensive.
Finally, regarding your generational bigotry — the stereotyping of entire generations is courtesy of media, pollsters and marketers, who decades ago created labels to place on people, the better to mold them and target them with a sales pitch.
I’m supposed to be a baby boomer. You apparently belong to a different generation. If you want to blame everyone in my generation for your problems, go ahead. But it won’t change your life.
Pamela, when people write things like Kelly wrote, just look at this and everything will be better: http://wondermark.com/338/
John: Thanks for that link. I’ve seen David Malki’s cartoons before, but I’m not sure where. The Onion, perhaps.
What I didn’t know, but discovered after exploring his website, is that he’s from San Bernardino! I did 14 years in San Bernardino (that’s how it felt sometimes). I remember Malki Automotive Center, owned by his dad John Malki, who used to write letters to the editor of the paper. So did his wife, Linden. I believe I may have talked to Mr. Malki a time or two.
The San Bernardino Sun, now owned by a different company than when I worked there, has a terrible archive. But at newspapers.com I found some of Mr. Malki’s letters. Here’s an excerpt from one in 1998: “Strength comes from morality. America can’t afford to ignore the inherent connection between private and public character.”
Imagine what he would he would say about the current presidential candidates.
I often glance at comments on Websites because they can be thought-provoking and informative (just like a good letter to the editor). David Malki is right, though, about comments that are purely intended to insult.
I’m guessing Kelly Lang is young. And, that he or she has a some rights to her grievances (but not her language).
She’s been poorly served by the educational system that our generation has put in place. Moreover, national leaders of all types have done poorly articulating a direction and purpose for our future.
We (our generation) has largely renounced the qualities that allowed America its unique level of political, social, scientific, and military achievement.
Our generation has replaced tolerance with cowardice and achievement with compromise. We’ve renounced our antecedents and sought to mollify those we had wronged through guilt driven irrationality.
Christianity was long our greatest common national irrationality. We’ve replaced its rigors and humility with pseudo-science and pop culture
Nah, Kelly Lang got burned and we burned her. She can’t articulate or really understand her dilemma and you can’t blame her for that.
As always – great blog.
Thanks Larry.
Every time I visit your website, http://www.eurasian-challenge.com/ I find something I haven’t seen anywhere else — and a reminder that there’s a world beyond the U.S.
When I get depressed about the presidential race, I also remind myself what you wrote: “No president has the power to do what he or she promises.” Maybe it will make little difference who gets elected. How much of America is owned by China?
Spotlight. You seen this movie? John Podhoretz of all people put me on to it. He asserted it was the best depiction of a newsroom in recent cinema. He also remarked that it is set at the turn of the century.
I saw “Spotlight” last year. In terms of the newsroom’s set design and the actors’ non-glamorous workaday lives, the movie captured the feel of a newsroom and how tedious real reporting can be (although the final product makes it worthwhile). The movie is a reminder of what long-form journalism used to be.
I liked the movie, but it bothered me that it skated over the Boston Globe’s history of kowtowing to the Catholic Church. As I recall, in the mid-90s there was a dust-up over a Globe reporter being reassigned because he had offended the Catholic Church with some impertinent reporting. It didn’t receive a lot of attention. There was a small item about it in the trade journal, “Editor & Publisher.”
I remember telling my mother about it. She hated the Catholic Church and complained about perverts in the priesthood. Unfortunately, she didn’t live to see some of the truth come out. She would have loved “Spotlight.”
I have read of others that share your complaint and I see the point of that complaint.
However, I felt that not only did it do so much right that this weakness was forgivable but that it also did not do other things: swelling music, bathetic incident, hate mongering, self-righteousness, and etc.
A good example of powerful restraint was the repeated viewing of molested children coloring.
I believe that the clerical crimes were primarily homosexual statutory rape and that the media and society have been complicit in a dodge by asserting pedophilia.
It was a film in which one had to listen to what was said. An attentive viewer could not escape the the damning silence of the Globe. I was glad not to be clobbered over the head with the paper’s failure when its failure was very plain.
It also contains the suggestion of what might happen to newsrooms if they had been more open to conservative editorship and reporting: if outsiders were allowed in to address shortcomings.
Thank you for your observations.