Society? The problem with the two Cs

It used to be that only children growing up in low-income neighborhoods found it impossible to sidestep the lure of drugs as an invitation awaits on every street corner.

But that has changed as selling items that could be misused to sell or use for drugs can be found at convenience stores throughout Connecticut — and sometimes the drugs themselves.

Whether they’re at home, on their way to school or playing on the playground, the temptation of drugs for children is everywhere — illegally on the corners, legally in the medicine cabinet and legally in the stores they visit every day in their neighborhoods.

Lawmakers will argue that the gateway to serious drug use lies with teens taking their first tote of a joint or what is now called a blunt.

But I will argue it is lawmakers themselves and their bow to commerce that start children on the yellow brick road long before they recognize they’re on it.

Whether you agree or not, selling drugs has replaced the lunchbox for many young men in poorer neighborhoods as good-paying opportunities are nonexistent or reserved for the best and brightest. I won’t argue their case but I will say what they’re doing doesn’t seem any different to me than what was happening during Prohibition before alcohol was ultimately legalized.

But I am not talking about the low-level corner street dealer making a living selling $10 bags of marijuana. He or she is not the starting point.

Sellers need the little cellophane bags to put their product in and buyers need the rolling papers, blunt wrappers or bong pipes in order to use the product.

And it’s available at the local corner store — in the same place where children buy their gummy bears, potato chips and penny candy — and carries the approval of the state of Connecticut.

That’s the starting point for a lot of children — and that’s the problem with lawmakers’ refusal to reword laws that allows for the sale of items that are used for smoking marijuana and other drugs, regardless of how they are labeled and sold as water pipes, tobacco novelty pipes and plastic jewelry bags.

Nobody is fooled. I can’t imagine lawmakers are fooled either. So, what’s the problem?

As things stand, it sends impressionable children growing up mixed signals as any adult can buy these products with a police officer standing right next them but then be arrested later for buying the product that goes in them.

How can the state win the war on drugs when lawmakers refuse to implement a simple change in the language that allows the sale of these items at convenience stores?

Connecticut would not be reinventing the wheel by doing so; other states are taking action.

Stores that sell drug paraphernalia or items used to enhance the drug experience are being shut down and fined under public nuisance laws in some cities and others are cracking down on some products sold at vape shops under laws to prevent the sale of products designed to be used with illegal drugs.

But that’s not all that’s available at the corner store. In some cases, so, too, is marijuana and cocaine and pretty much whatever else is sending people to Cloud 9 these days.

Urban children going in and out of these stores every day aren’t stupid; their eyes are wide open. With attitudes about marijuana changing, they know exactly what goes in Zig Zag and Bambu rolling papers and those brightly colored blunt wrappers with names like blue, pink and sweet.

But so far, business is outweighing the welfare of impressionable children and setting the stage for antagonism against law enforcement because the laws are not being applied fairly.

If police can arrest men and women selling marijuana and double the charge for selling it within 1,500 feet of a school, then the sale of items used to smoke it also shouldn’t be allowed to be sold within that same distance from a school.

But unlike the men whose wrists are bruised from handcuffs, shop owners are a collective economic force and when it really comes down to it, our legislators talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. They, too, follow the money. And there is a lot of money to be made.

Americans spent roughly $1 trillion on illegal substances between 2000 and 2010 — or about $100 billion a year — according to the RAND Drug Policy Research Center for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Drug sales are rampant and the hawkers comes in every form, from the men and women who sit on boards of pharmaceutical companies, to the friendly ice cream man selling more than cherry pops to the salesmen at used car dealerships.

The U.S. federal government spent more than $15 billion in 2010 fighting the drug war — that’s about $500 per second. Overall, between federal, state and local government, about $40 billion is spend annually in the war on drugs.

And that cost will go up now that opioid and heroin use has gripped Connecticut and the nation. The economic toll is staggering as the annual economic impact from the misuse of prescription drugs, illicit drugs or alcohol is $442 billion.

Here in Connecticut, spending on addiction and substance use accounts for 16.7 percent of the state budget and 11 cents out of every dollar, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Overall, the number of fatal opioid overdose in the state has risen every year since at least 2012, with 1,275 fatal opioid overdoses between 2012 and 2015. When final numbers are out, the state’s Chief Medical Examiner is projecting nearly 900 people will have died of accidental drug overdoses in 2016.

So, all that money — tens of millions of dollars annually — and we’re losing the war. And, of course, taxpayers are picking up the bill.

That doesn’t look to be changing anything soon despite a report that drug use among teens is dropping.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports that heroin use is up and drug usage among young people is also on the rise in Connecticut.

And that brings us to the problem with the two Cs — crisis and compassion — two costly words every taxpayer in Connecticut must be sick of hearing.

Society ebbs and flows based on the needs of its people and Connecticut taxpayers are being pounded again as millions and millions are spent and wasted on an effort the state can’t win.

I am not sure how much money small business and big business bring to the state but one thing I do know: You can’t win the war on drugs without a willingness to lose the battle of the almighty buck.