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posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 10 2017, @07:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the hot-turkey dept.

The Associated Press newswire reports:

After three defendants fatally overdosed in a single week last year, it became clear that Buffalo's ordinary drug treatment court was no match for the heroin and painkiller crisis.

Now the city is experimenting with the nation's first opioid crisis intervention court, which can get users into treatment within hours of their arrest instead of days, requires them to check in with a judge every day for a month instead of once a week, and puts them on strict curfews. Administering justice takes a back seat to the overarching goal of simply keeping defendants alive.

[...] Buffalo-area health officials blamed 300 deaths on opioid overdoses in 2016, up from 127 two years earlier. That includes a young couple who did not make it to their second drug court appearance last spring. The woman's father arrived instead to tell the judge his daughter and her boyfriend had died the night before.

[...] "This 30-day thing is like being beat up and being asked to get in the ring again, and you're required to," 36-year-old Ron Woods said after one of his daily face-to-face meetings with City Court Judge Craig Hannah, who presides over the program.

Woods said his heroin use started with an addiction to painkillers prescribed after cancer treatments that began when he was 21. He was arrested on drug charges in mid-May and agreed to intervention with the dual hope of kicking the opioids that have killed two dozen friends and seeing the felony charges against him reduced or dismissed.

[...] "I don't want to die in the streets, especially with the fentanyl out there," Sammy Delgado, one of the handcuffed defendants, said.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 10 2017, @12:26PM (6 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 10 2017, @12:26PM (#537092) Journal
    Pharma companies didn't force these people into court. Elected people passed the laws and pay the bills of the people who do that.
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Monday July 10 2017, @03:34PM (5 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 10 2017, @03:34PM (#537142) Journal

    Elected officials may have passed the laws, but it is the rest of us worker drones who pay the bills of the people who force drug addicted people into court.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:09PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:09PM (#537180)

      Do you believe that the vast majority of "us worker drones" would willingly hand over ~>50% of their production if they all weren't being effectively coerced at gunpoint (via the IRS and "law enforcement") to do so?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:12PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @05:12PM (#537184)

        The communists on this board do believe that. But that's OK, they are too dumb to make US into Venezuela even if they tried - and they will try. The only thing Socialism produces an abundance of is misery.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:04PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:04PM (#537218)

          The only thing Socialism produces an abundance of is misery.

          As does pure capitalism. Take your pick of economic ass fucking.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:24PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 10 2017, @06:24PM (#537237)

          "The only thing Socialism produces an abundance of is misery."

          Which is why socialist democracies are consistently ranked at the top of every "happiness index" chart in existence. You're confusing socialism with (fake) communism.

          Socialism is bad, because Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Also, democracy is bad, because Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday July 10 2017, @07:19PM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Monday July 10 2017, @07:19PM (#537276) Journal

            But Libertariantardism is wounderful, because of the Libertarian Paradisos of Somalia [huffingtonpost.com], and Colorado Springs. [politico.com]

            No opiod crisis in either of those places, except for the Colo Springs one.

            And remember, folks, "NO ONE EXPECTS the violent imposition!"