A step in a new direction

Published 11:33 am Thursday, March 30, 2017

Judge Andrew Ballard made a great point during last week’s Community Prevention and Recovery Symposium.

“No one can come in from outside and fix this,” he told the crowd. “We need to do it.”

With that bold statement, Ballard challenged the community to start doing the hard work necessary to repair the damage the drug epidemic has done to our community, and to our families. And he’s right. While we welcome assistance from our representatives and senators, both in Columbus and in Washington D.C., and recognize that their support, especially the funding that they can help provide, is invaluable, simply throwing money and political clout at the drug problem our community faces is not going to solve it.

That is going to require a commitment by the community. A commitment to holding ourselves and our loved ones to a higher standard, and a commitment to learning new ways of addressing these issues when we encounter them in our friends and relatives.

It’s going to require a change in the way we think about addiction, and the way we treat those suffering from addiction, and those who profit from exploiting that suffering.

The old, punitive model of addressing addiction does not, and has not, worked. Throwing addicts and drug dealers in prison has done nothing to slow the growth of the ranks of addicts, or the dealers that supply them. It has made our prisons bloated with inmates, and their associated costs. But addiction, and its associated social and personal problems, has continued to grow right alongside the prison population.

It doesn’t take a visionary to look at 40 years of data and recognize that the way we approach the problem isn’t solving it. It does take vision, however, along with conviction and bravery to stand up and suggest a new approach.

We commend our common pleas court judges, Charles Cooper, Andrew Ballard and David Payne, along with Prosecutor Brigham Anderson, for displaying that conviction, bravery, and vision that our county needs to finally overcome the problems that have plagued us. All of their strategies and suggestions may not work for everyone they encounter. But they have taken the necessary first steps in a new direction, and we’re honored to support them on this new path to recovery for our community.