Drugs affect everyone in our community

Last week deputies responded to a call of an injured person in a field near a vehicle. Initially it was thought it may be some type of vehicle accident. After deputies arrived on scene, they called for a detective and it was reported the injured person had a missing finger and severe cuts to the left arm and leg. It was not long after that the detective called me to let me know they believed the wounds were possibly self-inflicted based on the evidence they were processing. The detective also told me they had discovered the missing finger while processing the scene. Later in the day, detectives were able to obtain a statement from the injurned person that he had been using methamphetamines and had tried to cut his arm off, and in the process, succeeded in cutting a finger off his left hand.

Last week I talked about the problem with the supply of illegal drugs coming into our nation and how it can affect us right here in Vernon County. But I would also like to take a closer look at the immediate effect those drugs can have on the people in our community. I have heard the argument that illegal drugs should be a personal choice because they only affect the person taking them. This is not true. Drugs affect everyone including the person, the family, friends, and everyone else in our community. There are many reasons why people say they tried illegal drugs the first time. Some say it was for fun, some say they were just curious to see what they were missing, and to others it was a way to escape the pain caused by some event in their life. But regardless of the reason, once the drug was taken it became an addiction, something the body tells the brain it cannot live without. This person has now become the first victim. They have committed a crime, but they have also become a victim to themselves. As sad as these stories can be, this is not where it ends. A high percentage of the time we find that the user also has children. Children that rely on the parent to provide and care for them. Besides the neglect that begins taking place when the parent becomes so addicted they spend more time getting high than they do taking care of the child, this change in lifestyle often causes them to lose their job, making it even more difficult to provide for the child. There have been countless times we have served search warrants on houses and end up finding methamphetamines in the same room with children. The child has now become the second victim, but not by their own choice. We often also find stolen items in the same locations as drugs, and find that the items were being traded for the illegal drugs. We now have multiple victims of theft and burglary throughout the county.

Children are then placed with family or other caregivers while the parent is taken to jail on drug and often theft charges. Now the person will be held in the county jail costing the county money as well as the process of the court system that will take place. This has expanded the impact on the community, but it still does not end there. There are programs like drug court that are available to help some of these people overcome their addiction and get their life started down a better path, but for some their addiction to drugs will lead them down the same path multiple times; each time making it harder and harder for their chances to gain employment because they cannot pass drug screenings, and their health continues to deteriorate causing them to need medical assistance. This can also contribute to a rise in medical costs for everyone else in the community. Drugs are not a personal problem, they are a community problem. I think the more focus we can place on this issue the more we can help. We need to educate our children and we need to reach out to everyone we can to help make a difference in the lives of others before they start down this path, because even though the first victim may be the user of the drug, they have also committed a crime and we will be forced to seek them out before they make someone else a victim as well.