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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: 3, Touché) by RedBear on Tuesday July 11 2017, @01:29PM (2 children)

    by RedBear (1734) on Tuesday July 11 2017, @01:29PM (#537570)

    You win. Every opioid addict "chooses" to die on a bathroom floor with a needle in their arm. You're doing an excellent job solving the opioid epidemic crisis. All we have to do is let ten million Americans die of drug overdoses. Feck 'em, right? They're just losers who chose to become addicts. Oh, except the ones who "came by it honestly" (huh?) But they can all just man up and shake it off if they really want to. If they can't shake it they didn't really want to, did they? Perfectly consistent circular, self-supporting Catch-22 logic. Addiction is a choice. Problem solved.

    This attitude is what created the opioid epidemic and helps it grow and persist. But you'll never see that, even if it happens to your own family and friends. Anyone that succumbs is an immoral, weak loser to be spat upon and rolled into a ditch to rot. Makes life so simple.

    I really hope that no one ever treats you with such disdain when you need help.

    --
    ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
    ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:25PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday July 11 2017, @05:25PM (#537687) Journal

    "If they can't shake it they didn't really want to, did they?"

    Now you've got it!

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday July 11 2017, @09:40PM

    by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday July 11 2017, @09:40PM (#537808)

    Since none of them sought treatment no I don't feel bad. You can't force someone to stop being an addict. Its up to the individual.