The Other Pandemic
By: Jeffrey B. Stamm
As our nation indeed the world continues to struggle against the coronavirus and the attendant problems caused by our collective responses to the threat it is worth remembering that we are also still in the midst of another pandemic one we have been fighting for decadesillegal drugs. Both COVID-19 and illicit drugs are deadly contagions killing scores of people across our communities nation and world. Both can be considered lethal pathogens" spread throughout society by their vectors" or carriers." And both coincidentally are on track to kill an equal number of Americans this yearat least 60000 according to the latest estimates.
The parallels dont stop there. We are reminded on a daily basis that every American must play a role" in battling against this viral corona disease as we adapt our lives and lifestyles to help defeat the enemy" in a new war" on behalf of our fellow citizens. Yet somehow this civic solidarity and necessary engagement in our nations other war on drugs" has been lost even vilified by our modern culture. While we rightly praise our health care professionals those warriors" on the front lines valiantly fighting against the viral scourge every day across the nation many of our sophisticated" and enlightened" elites continue to assail our law enforcement professionals for waging a supposed war against their fellow citizens. Preferring to thoughtlessly parrot false slogans and myths many of todays commentatorsfrom both the progressive left and the libertarian rightfail to understand that illegal drugs is too a global scourge that threatens not only our public health and safety but our very national security. It is also a social and biological (dare I add moral?) problem that requires the understanding and involvement of every American.
It is altogether curious that those who incessantly complain against governments interfering in ones right to put into ones body whatever one wishes" or to be able to do your own thing" with psychoactive drugs are seemingly the ones who are now most officious in demanding that we follow every authoritarian decree concerning individual behaviors that might spread a viral infection. Those who stridently demand an end to the so-called war on drugs exhibit remarkable ignorance. They also reveal an arrogant and casual disregard for both drug users
and our society in order to pander to a temporary and specious desire by a selfish minority intent on exercising rights" divorced from any corresponding duties.
Unlike the emerging good news about turning the tide against COVID-19 through our continued shared sacrifices and personal responsibility the trajectory of drug use and addiction in our society is quite the opposite. Despite some recent good news about a four percent reduction in overdose deaths in 2018 overall drug use and trafficking across the nation continue to increase at alarming rates. Across the heartland of America in the six states (MO KS IA NE SD ND) that constitute the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) drug poisoning deaths have actually soared seven percent during the same time period. And as we continue to make progress against prescription opioid abuse Mexican drug cartels continue to flood the nation with heroin fentanyl cocaine marijuana and most alarmingly ton quantities of cheap pure methamphetamine. In fact Midwest HIDTA law enforcement organizations at the local state and federal levels across the Midwest have seized nearly double the amount of methamphetamine in 2019 over the previous year with meth seizures tripling from 2016. It is clear that Americans dont just have an opioid problem we have a
drug problem.
But unlike viral diseases the pathogen" of drugs is spread by their vectors" i.e. the drug traffickers through conscious and illegal actions to profit from human misery and addiction. Currently the single-greatest criminal threat to our country comes from the Mexican drug cartels. These transnational criminal organizations are single-minded zealous highly-ethnocentric and shockingly violent. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they take our compassionate progressivism utopian multiculturalism and moral and cultural relativism as weakness. It is estimated that they have an imbedded presence in over 3000 American cities and towns. They are here
solely to sell drugs to Americans. In the Midwest alone narcotics agents and officers are tracking and targeting over 638 drug trafficking organizations comprised of over six thousand members actively engaged in drug importation and distribution. They not only enslave and kill our fellow citizens but undermine the rule of law by engaging in money laundering and other criminal acts. They foment gang activity and engage in barbaric and terroristic actsnot only in their own country but increasingly in ours.
Every narc and every cop in every city and state across the land knows that we cannot police our way out of the drug problem. Yet so too do they understand better than anyone that the pandemic of illegal drugs cannot be contained
without the law enforcement component. Just as with our struggle against the corona virus controlling illegal drug trafficking and use demands a clear-eyed application of treatment prevention
and enforcement tools. The late sociologist James Q. Wilson eloquently instructed that sanctioning an individual drug addict may seem unjust or uncompassionate but failing to do anything about an epidemic of drug addicts leads to social catastrophe." So as we continue to seek and debate the best path forward in our current crisisor war"with a viral pandemic we should understand that
any global contagion requires the discouraging and sometimes sanctioning of individual actions that are destructive not only of the self but of civilization.
The question of illegal drugslike that of COVID-19is not one that simply and timidly requires a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable personal behavior; its a struggle that demands the engagement of every American for its nothing less than an existential threat to society. Every night in every community in every state across this great nation there are parents praying that their children not get exposed to the contagion of drugs. You we together can help be the answer to those prayers.
Jeff Stamm is a 34-year law enforcement veteran having served as a Deputy Sheriff in Sacramento County California and a Special Agent in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He is currently the Director of the Midwest HIDTA based in Kansas City Missouri and is also the author of On Dope: Drug Enforcement and The First Policeman."
