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Springfield woman extradited to New Hampshire for the second time in a month Report Vermont News Created by Eric Francis WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - A Springfield woman who was just extradited to New Hampshire last month on a heroin possession charge was arrested over the weekend and extradited back to New Hampshire again this week to face a cocaine possession charge. Advertisement: Content continues below... Want to see your ad here? Jewel Breed, 25, was arrested last Saturday at her apartment on River Street in Springfield after police were made aware of new nationwide arrest warrants that had been issued by Sullivan County New Hampshire at the beginning of this month. Jewel Breed, 25, signs voluntarily waiver of extradition papers this week in the courtroom in White River Junction In mid-September Breed had been arrested in Springfield and voluntarily waived extradition to Sullivan County where she was formally arraigned on the heroin charge and then re-released. The latest drug charge alleges that Breed possessed cocaine when police encountered her in Charlestown, New Hampshire on August 23rd. Breed waiving extradition in the same courtroom a month ago
Further proof our judiciary is not a deterrent to drug use and sale. What is failed to be addressed is, this skank has a $100+ a day addiction. Where is the money coming from? Unleashing her back on the street just furthers the chain of victims. But what the hell, this is the state government you voted for. And like all good liberals you can selfishly feel good about your empathetic intentions. Up until it's your car, or home that's robbed or family member with an untreatable STD. No wonder Vermont has a shrinking population and it's almost exclusively the brightest and most ambitious saying adios to the progressive utopia.
ReplyDeleteWest Virginia has a worse problem with opioids than Vermont. I guess conservatism isn't the cure, either.
DeleteHeroin addiction is a diease that has been fueled by social media. As the smartphone became an extension of one's arm the heroin pandemic took off full blast. It really shouldn't be called a diease, it was a choice and you can bet a smartphone was key.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't become a noticeable problem until Nixon realized he could use it to cripple the civil rights activists of the 70's by including it in a "War on Drugs." As his former partner in crime and White House counsel John Ehrlichmann told a reporter after he got out of jail, "We devised the War on Drugs to undercut the blacks [heroin] and the anti-war hippies [marijuana]."
ReplyDeleteAs it is illegal, there are much better profits to be made from it than almost any legal retail business provides, just the way alcohol products were extremely profitable during Prohibition. And because it is so much more expensive than alcohol, addicts quite often have to resort to crime to pay for it.
In contrast, alcoholism creates much more pain and extorts much more social cost, but because it is cheap, most alcoholics don't resort to crime to get their next fix.
We should be dealing with this as a public health problem, not a crime problem. Doing so would cause the cartels to move on to a more lucrative field, just as they did after Prohibition ended. The question is whether we will ever come to our senses...
Behold, the ghost of Tricky Dick! Just in time for Halloween. So, cheap, legal drugs will lessen crime, but will create more drug addicts. That doesn't sound like a solution, Chuck! There has been a spike in car crashes in states with legal marijuana. See the pattern?
DeleteWhen substances are decriminalized, there is a pattern of spiking as the population experiments with the novelty. The spike disappears, and in Portugal, use rates for all substances declined within a few years of decriminalization (this however, might be due to other factors, such as a reduction in the Gini Index, which indicates better material prosperity for all). Which of course meant that MORE drug addicts were not being created. Tricky Dick was very, very shrewd to sell us this pile of steaming manure.
ReplyDeleteGet back to us in three years with the rates, 6:56.
Sorry, Chuck. The risk of failure is too great to allow you three years, or even three minutes. As one who was a former drug user, as well as a treatment professional, I speak from both personal and professional experience. You won't find a recovering addict ANYWHERE calling for legalization. We know the dangers. Decriminalization is not the same as legalization, either. You seem to confuse the two, or perhaps you think we will. You completely ignore the destruction of life that addiction causes, and focus instead on creating a system that creates, and then exploits the addicted! Treatment is a revolving door for most; just ask a professional. You haven't told us how more drug addicts are preferable to fewer, and how drug abuse creates a better society. You are the only person I've ever encountered who thinks it will.
DeleteWe have been failing with the War on Drugs for 46 years, and you want it to continue to fail for another three????
ReplyDeleteOf course recovering addicts, having been through what they have, will not call for legalization, just as an alcoholic will not favor the merchandising of alcoholic products. However, data tell a different story at the macro level. There is also the matter of the disappearance of the violence and corruption endemic to illegality after decriminalization. So, despite former users' preferences and fears, use rates do not go up and the horrendous costs of crime and crimefighting associated with illegality disappear.
Of course there will be continue to be those who get addicted, but right now SWAT teams don't deal very successfully with helping them recover.
At least you'll admit that your solution does NOTHING to solve the problem of drug addiction. Law enforcement expenditures are only a small fraction of the real cost of addiction. Again, ask any health professional. Most addicts get hooked on legal opioids that are prescribed by doctors. If, as you say, use rates do not go up, how exactly did it become an epidemic? Getting people hooked on drugs, and then taxing those drugs, is about as criminal as it gets. The prescribing physician, the goverment, and ultimately the Nation as a whole become de facto dope dealers. Big Pharma is the only real beneficiary. Your "solution" is is both morally and ethically bankrupt, and flies in the face of reality! You're not stoned, are you?
DeleteWhy should we have enforcement policies that PROMOTE addiction by making it profitable for the sellers? And under the present system, there is no tax on black market sales of addictive substances. If the government is running the whole market from production to retail, a tax isn't necessary; in fact, it's oxymoronic.
ReplyDeleteAs has been proven, decriminalization REDUCES the addiction problem. I'd say you're partly wrong in your claim that it does nothing to solve the addiction problem....
If the government is running the drug trade from start to finish, that makes them (and all of us, by default) the cartel, the mules, and the dealers. In that case, only the government and the pharmaceutical industry are profiting, while the people suffer. Decriminalization means no prison time for simple possession, just confiscation and a small fine. That does NOTHING to reduce addiction, it just keeps the users on the street, where they commit crime to get more dope. What you're talking is legalization, with the government taking over the illegal drug trade, thereby making it "legal." Why not just let the Mafia run the government, and save time? What is your major malfunction, Chuck? What you are proposing is absolutely insane!
DeleteWait a few years and it will be like the mafia running the government.
DeleteIt does a lot to reduce crime. The cartels are going to move on to other endeavors that make more profit than legalized substances will; they're not in it for charity, and if they can't make the usual money, they're not going to bother trying to create more addicts. And unlike what happened when we let the for-profit sector get back into peddling booze, when the government runs it, it doesn't make sense to pump up the product to create more addicts or to advertise to recruit more potential addicts-- so addiction rates actually go down.
DeleteIf what I propose is insane, why has decriminalization in other countries not produced more crime and higher rates of addiction?
Taking something illegal, and making it legal, doesn't reduce crime in the real sense. The act hasn't changed, only the actor. Apply that same standard to any other crime and you'll see how ridiculous your logic is. Do you think murder in the name of profit is OK, as long as the goverment does it? Maybe you do. Maybe, like most Progressives, you just can't tell right from wrong. Unlike you, I'm not willing to accept ANY level of addiction and death as legitimate. Seriously, Chuck, the only reason I'm continuing this crazy conversation is in the hope that other people will be convinced of what a mad fool you really are. I know you're too demented to see it.
Delete7:01, I think the solution we would both find acceptable would be to have a society where people had reason to hope-- growing up with the knowledge that you'd eventually become an adult, have a job that paid decently and provided you with a manageable retirement, marry somebody you liked and who liked you, etc., makes a venture into addiction seem pointless. We no longer have that.
ReplyDeleteWhat we are getting into here as we re-mold ourselves into a banana republic is a population which, finding itself deprived of hope and possibilities, will retreat more and more into political and chemical fantasies. If we do not take firm steps to re-establish democracy, then we will only continue to mindlessly serve Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs."
If you do not believe the data reported by other countries, then you are doomed to continue banging your head against this particular wall. I can appreciate your horror of addiction. It is just too bad you can't separate the present situation's two components-- the profits of illegality and the problem of addition-- and deal with them in an innovative way.
I checked out your data, Chuck. In an article published by The Guardian, Portugal reports only that the opioid epidemic there has "stabilized." It has not improved. The article does not credit decriminalization, but rather points to a variety of other causes. The article DOES mention that Portugal is still dealing with a health crisis related to drug abuse. Doesn't sound like it's working too well. You still conflate decriminalization with legalization. They are two entirely different things. Your "innovative" approach to the opioid crisis is to blame Richard Nixon, and just throw in the towel. NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Delete9:44, I suggest you broaden your overview. Here's the first half-dozen articles listed on one browser:
ReplyDeletehttps://duckduckgo.com/?q=post-decriminalization+rates&bext=msl&atb=v111-2_y&ia=web
I repeat: Remove the profit motive,and you eliminate the crime factor. We don't have any significant bootlegging because it's cheaper for someone to buy a legitimate product at a store rather than go through the trouble of making his own and hoping to cover his costs by selling the surplus on the black market. Same with tobacco. It will be the same with decriminalized marijuana.
But you don't want to let the corporations have control of these. As is seen with liquor and tobacco, they adulterate the product when possible to create addicts, and they advertise to lure more customers and make more profits. It has to be an enterprise overseen from production through retail by the government.
A lot of us experience the same horror the ladies of the WCTU did at the notion of ending Prohibition, but the world didn't come to an end, and alcohol didn't destroy the country. We have to have a more realistic attitude toward heroin, addiction and a response to it as an illness.
Glad you brought up cigarettes, Chuck; they make an excellent example. I just recently quit, after over 30 years of smoking. I wish cigarettes were illegal, and not available at every store and gas station. I probably wouldn't have started in the first place, and quitting would be exponentially easier. Cigarettes will never be illegal no matter how many people they kill, because the government makes too much money off of taxing them. What do you think will happen when buying heroin is as easy as going to the nearest gas station? Furthermore, what makes you, or anyone else, think that the government is any less corrupt and driven by greed than Corporate America? Do you honestly expect us to believe that politicians are any less likely to get us hooked, and keep us there, just for the money, the power, or the control? Comparing alcohol to any other drug is a false equivilancy. Growing good quality marijuana, poppies, or even cigarette tobacco is more labor-intensive, and requires more resources, than most people can muster. I used to know people who grew weed in their basements. They couldn't grow enough good pot, cheap enough, to avoid buying more, just for their own supply. Forget about surplus! Narcotics are virtually impossible for the average user to make in any quantity as well. Booze can be made in one's kitchen, with typical utensils, and ingredients found in every grocery store. Most people can see the difference between alcohol and drugs; why can't you? Do you think the opioid epidemic is a figment of our imaginations, or some type of fanatical obsession, as was the Temperence Movement? It's real, Chuck, and it's killing people every day. Why can't you understand that more dope isn't the answer?
DeleteBuying heroin must NEVER be as easy as going to the nearest gas station! We have trouble enough keeping kids' heads straight about buying jeans-- there are kids who will kill kids because of their pants-- and keeping all Americans focused on what makes life worthwhile, simply because advertisers will do anything to make money. You can imagine how much worse it would be if heroin were handed over to the corporations to treat like tobacco and booze.
ReplyDeleteIt must be kept under complete government control. Price it sensibly, and it will drive the criminal element out, completely.
The government is MUCH more responsible to the public than you think. How many people does it take to get a book pulled from a public school library? Usually, one person. How many bureaucrats want to lose a nice secure lifelong job by stepping on public opinion? None. But try to get a corporation to apply a reasonable finance rate to a credit card? Good luck with that!
The long view is that there is no difference clinically between alcohol, tobacco and other substances-- in the end, they will kill the user. What we have been doing is NOT working.
The only way we can cope with them effectively is by eliminating the profit motive which fuels their continued expansion and putting all the "crime-fighting" money into therapy. We can't do that with booze and tobacco because of the socially approved corporate lock on them, but we can keep corporations from moving into the marijuana business-- David Zuckerman came up with an iron-clad bill for that!
We can only hope the next generation looks at the last 50 years of the War on Drugs the same way our generation looks on Prohibition-- "What in the world were they thinking of?"
So, the government will manufacture, distribute, and gain revenue from selling a substance that it will then have to spend money treating people for using. The classic definition of circular logic. How many bureaucrats will risk alienating the general public by passing unpopular legislation, or being corrupt? You're kidding, right? Look at nearly every piece of legislation passed by the GOP in the last decade. Then, turn back the clock and look at the Dems in the 70's and 80's. Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich is still in prison; his predecessor, Republican Gov. George Ryan, just got out of prison. To think that public corruption is non-existent in either party is dangerously naive, at best. Legalizing recreational opioids is the single most stupid and dangerous idea out there right now. No one in their right mind supports it.
DeleteSo is legalizing the use of alcohol and tobacco products-- but we've done that.
ReplyDeleteAs a result of keeping the manufacture and distribution of opioids in the private sector, we have seen a massive development of an addiction problem in West Virginia, where pharmaceutical companies sold 921 Oxycontin pills per person.
While you might have individual government officials on the take in any bureau, they are constrained by a lot of people who would love to see them out of a job for any reason-- that's one of the reasons Blagojevich, DeLay and many others are not in government any more.
In the private sector, you get echelons of minions whose livelihood depends on keeping the corporate suits happy-- and if the suits are corrupt, the minions won't blab.
Either we get out ahead of this problem and take it under control, or we will see the country degenerate into the same mess China was in during the Opium Wars.
Our generation (I am assuming you are over 40) is simply acculturated to the idea-- thanks to the War on Drugs-- that heroin addiction will, if decriminalized, seize everybody. It ain't so. But it will probably take the next generation to look at it impartially. They will not have drunk the Kool-Aid we have.
See, that's your problem, Chuck. First, you say that legal, regulated opioids are the the solution, and then you point to legal, regulated opioids as the problem. The government already regulates the sale of these substances, and it's a disaster. There would be no difference whatsoever with your solution, except to take a bad situation, and make it worse. The "mess in China" is exactly what we'll have, if we aren't there already. Maybe the Chinese solution is the only answer. A REAL war on drugs. Yes, our generation, for the most part, knew better than to try heroin. It's called prevention. A sustained campaign of television commercials, radio spots by famous musicians, popular songs, etc. all helped educate us about the dangers of narcotics. The popular belief that "junkies" and "pill-heads" were lowlife didn't hurt, either. THAT'S a strategy for dealing with the opioid crisis; make opioid use so abhorrent to young people that they'll never even THINK of trying them. Opioids will "seize" everyone stupid enough to try them, and apparently, that's a lot of people these days. Why are you in such a hurry to get the younger generation hooked on drugs? Sounds like you hate young people! Seriously, if all you are going to do is continuously contradict yourself, I see no point in continuing. Get a grip, Chuck; you're starting to sound like a Trump supporter!
Delete9:40, it's clear you don't have much grounding in the issue, but you do try.
DeleteMost people continue to ise because the effects of stopping are so severe. Withdrawl, depression ect. Create a medication to solve this issue and I bet you solve a huge problem.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that people don't want to stop it's that people suffer severe consequences when they do!!!
There's probably not one in one hundred people who express concern about this issue who understand why heroin addicts can break the habit and stay free of it for the rest of their life.
ReplyDeleteWithout knowing about that, it's very easy for a person to view heroin addiction as the arrival of the end of the world.