Law enforcement grapples with public health approach to opioid abuse

A compromise struck before the bill became law — which requires callers to participate in a criminal investigation, if asked — underscores tension between an emerging view of substance abuse as a public health issue and the decades-old, zero-tolerance legacy of the so-called War on Drugs.

“That was the price of success,” said state Sen. J. Chapman “Chap” Petersen, D-Fairfax City, who authored the bill.

“It concerns me in the sense that I don’t want people to be inhibited from coming forward. From the same token, I’m not averse to the fact that, when there’s an overdose and they pick up the kids, they’re going to say, ‘Where’d you get the drugs?’ ”

Federal and state authorities say they want a new approach that emphasizes treatment over incarceration. But even as they work to shift resources, the number of people arrested with painkillers or heroin has doubled in the past eight years in Virginia.

Heroin killed nearly twice as many people last year as it did in 2012. And more than 4,400 Virginians have died from painkiller and heroin overdoses since 2007.

“We’re making more arrests, yet more people are using,” said Brian J. Moran, Virginia’s secretary of public safety and homeland security. “We’re arresting more people, but the problem hasn’t gone away. I think that confirms the adage that we can’t arrest our way out of this.”

Garris, who is recovering at Chippenham Hospital, had been hooked on drugs for years, just like her older half-brother, Travis. He died of a heroin overdose March 4, days after learning she was in the hospital.

Both had been in and out of jail and rehab, and both, family members said, had overdosed twice previously.

In Chesterfield, police say the number of people who overdosed on heroin and other opioid substances in the first few months of 2016 is almost equal to the total for all of 2014.

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At least 10 people overdosed on heroin in Richmond alone last week, said Capt. Michael Zohab, a 28-year veteran of the city police department who oversees special investigations.

“We can’t do nothing,” Zohab said. “We’ve got to do something.”

He has an idea that he says has drawn strange looks from colleagues but won the support of his boss, Police Chief Alfred Durham: Within 24 hours of responding to a nonlethal overdose, Richmond police should offer the victim a chance to detox, for free.

“That’s when we need to reach someone — not in 30 days, 60 days or 90 days — right now,” said Zohab, whose department typically refers addicts to overwhelmed public health services that require users to wait months before receiving treatment.

Zohab said he is prepared to take criticism from those who question law enforcement’s role in combating a social ill. He is retiring next year and unafraid of controversy.

“If I’ve got that person right there in that window and they need help, I might be able to save their life. Not only am I saving their life, I’m saving you money because no one can lead an addict’s life legally.”

People in the Garris family knew from experience to lock away their pocketbooks and medicine cabinets if Taylor or Travis were visiting.

Travis once pawned his aunt’s old horseshoe ring, a ring she says is worth thousands of dollars, for $75. It got to the point that neither was welcome at times in the homes of the people who had tried most to help them.

“Some people you hold in your heart, but you can’t hold them in your arms,” said Carolyn Garris, Travis and Taylor’s grandmother.

Thefts by desperate addicts hoping to score money for drugs are common but difficult to track. But at the Henrico County Jail, larceny is among the top two charges for men and women undergoing opiate detox, of which there were 944 in 2015, Sheriff Michael Wade said. That’s up from 897 in 2014.

“This county used to pretend it didn’t have a heroin problem,” Wade said. “But they can’t ignore it now.”

Zohab, the Richmond police captain, has sold the plan to his department, local politicians and city officials. On Wednesday, he sold it to a group of 200 recovering addicts and their family members at the campus of Hatcher Memorial Baptist Church on Dumbarton Road.

He was nervous, standing before a large wooden cross and full pews.

“Quite frankly, I expected at least one out of the 200 people up there to have a problem with me, or some issue with law enforcement,” he said after making his pitch.

Funding for the five-day outpatient detox services Zohab envisions would come from private donors, with matching help from the McShin Foundation, a nonprofit recovery organization that is partnering with the department.

After his presentation, a woman approached quietly to thank him; her son had overdosed on heroin in Richmond last month. He almost didn’t make it, she said. Zohab shook his head.

“This is why we can’t wait,” Zohab said.

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Moran, the public safety secretary, said he plans to ask prosecutors across the state whether anyone has used Virginia’s Good Samaritan Law since it took effect in July.

Experts say the law is among the weakest of its kind in the nation, in part because it offers a defense for charges instead of immunity from them and in part because it requires people to snitch.

“If you haven’t cleared the decks and said, ‘Don’t worry, we want you to save a life,’ then the intent of this legislation is going to be undermined,” said Daniel Raymond, policy director for the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national advocacy group for helping those addicted to drugs.

“Anytime you’re in that situation where there’s a overdose and you have to make that split-second decision, is it safe to call 911, all these caveats start to push that decision toward no.”

And while people such as Moran, who was chairman of a state task force on the heroin and painkiller epidemic, are helping lead the push to deal with addiction as a public health crisis instead of a law enforcement one, the state’s treatment systems are so overwhelmed that families often feel most relaxed when their addicted loved ones are in jail.

“When my kids was in jail, I was actually happy. I had a peace,” said Coy Garris, father of Travis and Taylor. “I knew they were safe, to a certain extent.”

He’s not alone.

Wade, the Henrico sheriff, said family members of addicted inmates incarcerated in the county jail have declined to post even $100 bond, so that their loved one will be forced to detox.

“This is the only way a lot of folks will get care,” he said. “It’s not just an individual problem; it’s a family problem, and it affects people from all walks of life. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Wade’s peer-led recovery programs have won accolades, but even the jail’s own counselors revolted initially; two of the three on staff transferred to another county department when he implemented the treatment, Wade said.

“A lot of facilities are afraid to give inmates that much responsibility,” Wade said. “They think if the inmates are in charge, they will riot.”

Absent options, people locked up with substance abuse problems will waste their sentence away plotting their next high instead of rehabilitating, he said, or orchestrating ways to smuggle drugs into the jail. Deputies have foiled 17 attempts since Jan. 1 — many of them involving heroin.

“I’m one who believes incarceration is the best time for treatment,” Wade said. Critics “talk like people are going to jail for being an addict. No one’s in jail for being an addict; they’re arrested for stuff they’ve done.”

Virginia is adding about $20 million for substance abuse treatment improvements in the just-adopted state budget in hopes of eliminating waiting lists, so addicts can get help when they need it. On Friday, the state announced that it had won a federal grant for $325,000 to help treat people addicted to painkillers or heroin.

And the U.S. Senate on Thursday passed legislation co-patroned by Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., that would boost treatment for addicts and expand drug prevention programs by at least $300 million over five years.

Kaine said Friday that the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act seeks to treat the surging opioid and heroin epidemic like the public health crisis it is. The 94-1 vote in favor of the measure signals an evolving approach to a problem once seen as a moral failing, he said.

“Our strategy was like 80 percent public safety, 20 percent health; it needs to be more like 50-50,” Kaine said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill’s provisions would take $725 million to fund; it’s unclear whether more money will be forthcoming or when the House of Representatives will consider the measure.

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Taylor Garris got out of jail on Valentine’s Day. Her father, Coy, begged her to stay at his house.

He had driven his little girl around the country years ago to perform with the Richmond Twisters cheer team, always praising her and the trophies she invariably won. But she had changed once she started doing drugs at 14, he said, and their relationship had withered.

Still, this time he offered to let her stay or to find her an apartment near a bus line in Richmond, since she had no driver’s license and thousands of dollars in fines to pay.

But Taylor and Travis instead went on a three-week binge that started almost as soon as she came home, according to family members.

Last summer, Taylor went to King’s Creek Plantation with her aunt Terri Garris and other family members, just like they had done so often in her childhood. On the Jamestown Ferry ride, they crowded toward the front of the boat, arms outstretched like the famous scene from the movie “Titanic.”

At one point, Taylor told her aunt that it was probably her first time seeing the beach in four or five years. Every summer, it seemed, she either was in jail or rehab.

On Thursday, she mouthed the words “I love you” to her aunt. She pulled on her own socks and rubbed lotion on her hands.

But it may be a long recovery process for her. Doctors have told her father it’s not yet clear whether she’ll ever be able to feed herself again.

And everyone feels certain that the news about Travis will devastate her. He was a skilled sign maker when he could leave the drugs alone. But his rap sheet made it hard for him to find work outside his father’s shop.

Taylor’s going to deal with the same issues. She may end up back in jail once she’s released from the hospital. Her parole officer called to check on her and promised to call back in a week, Coy Garris said.

For now, the Garris family is balancing on a high-wire of hope and grief.

“One minute you’re really up because Taylor is making progress. The next minute you’re at the bottom of the pit because you know you’ll never see Travis again,” said Terri Garris. “Why not make the laws around addiction for the addict instead of against them?”