EDITORIAL: Why Law Enforcement Won't Cure Heroin Epidemic

Dec. 15--The number of Connecticut residents who have died of heroin overdoses has ballooned from 257 in 2013 to a projected death toll of 381 for 2015. The question is why.

Solely focusing on stronger enforcement of drug laws to stop the deaths is not the solution.

Forty years of the War on Drugs have not prevented this sudden spike in heroin-related deaths. The "tough on crime" approach typically targets cities and other communities that are poor and made up of people of color. The heroin epidemic, however, affects people across socioeconomic and demographic lines. The drug has killed more people in Brookfield and Enfield than in New Haven or New London, The Courant reported Sunday. And more people in their 30s have died than teens or twentysomethings.

A broader net, outside of law enforcement, must be cast to get at this problem.

Officer Jeff Lampson, a retired Manchester police officer, offers a clue to understanding the heroin issue. He described to The Courant the plight of a young man who was wounded in Afghanistan. The veteran had turned to heroin because he could no longer afford his prescription drugs for pain relief and had no insurance.

Jessica Renee Campion gives another glimpse. She was only 20 when she died of a heroin overdose in Windsor Locks. Her mother, Esther York, believes that her daughter struggled with undiagnosed schizophrenia. Jessica had tried marijuana, had abused prescription drugs and had been in rehab several times before her death.

These stories do not fit neatly into the typical narrative, in which more police officers and more drug busts are the answer. In fact, no story of drug abuse does. Heroin use is the end result of myriad problems playing out in homes across the nation.

An approach that considers the realities of these problems, such as prescription drug addiction and withdrawal, mental health treatment and the age-old issue of poverty, is our only hope of curbing the explosive growth of heroin usage.

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