by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“There’s a party in my mind…And it never stops
There’s a party up there all the time…They’ll party till they drop
Other people can go home…Other people they can split
I’ll be here all the time…I can never quit.”
– “Memories Can’t Wait” by Talking Heads, written by David Byrne and Jerry Harrison
As previously discussed here at Res Ispa Loquitur, some fashion choices can be downright criminal. This time our contestant on Felony Runaway Fashions is Chad William Forber, 41, from Blue Grass, Illinois. Like our previous encounter with those who have a daring fashion sense, there is no probative legal analysis of this case and no pressing civil rights issue. Just good clean fun(ny facts). Also some not so funny (alleged) drug use. This time our designer’s drug of choice was methamphetamines. There is nothing funny about meth. Nothing at all.
On Monday, August 7th, 2012, police officers in Rock Island, Illinois, responded to the call of a naked man at 3:27 a.m. walking in the 2200 block of 3rd Avenue. When they arrived at the scene, they found Mr. Forber, walking down the street, naked, his shorts in hand. He told the responding officers that he had taken off his shorts because they were too big and would not stay on. It’s what he opted to wear instead of his shorts that is interesting enough to make even Tim Gunn pay attention. According to Rock Island Deputy Chief of Police Jeff VenHuizen, Forber had “lathered himself up in Crisco [Cooking Spray]. He was covered in grease, and was holding the can under his arm.” But wait! There’s more.
“He said he was looking for a place to party,” VenHuizen added.
His party abruptly stopped when the Rock Island P.D. took him in to custody. He was charged with possession of methamphetamine, resisting or obstructing a peace officer and possession of drug paraphernalia. His bond was set at $40,000, he’s currently residing in the Rock Island County Jail and his case is assigned to the Public Defender’s Office. In a bit of good luck for Forber, the charge of lewd exposure was dismissed.
While all of this is intrinsically funny as a situation, the methamphetamines they found in Forber’s short’s pocket are not funny in the slightest. Methamphetamine is a central nervous system stimulant drug that is classified as a Schedule II drug. Although prescribed by physicians, its uses are limited and the dosage of legitimate prescriptions are small compared to the typical dosages of abusers. It can be snorted, smoked or injected and it works by increasing dopamine levels in the brain. Much of the supply of this drug isn’t from pharmaceutical labs, but rather from home labs that are inherently dangerous and pose environmental hazards and health risks to both workers and anyone unfortunate enough to live near an illegal meth lab. Because of this “home cooking”, the drug also has the added danger of unpredictable side effects due to adulteration of the “product”. Short term use of the drug can cause increased wakefulness, increased physical activity, decreased appetite, increased respiration, rapid heart rate, irregular heartbeat, increased blood pressure, and hyperthermia. Chronic use of the drug can cause emotional and cognitive problems which can be long lasting if not permanent including psychotic features like paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions. Add to this extreme weight loss, severe dental problems (“meth mouth”), anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. It is one of the fastest growing illicit drug trades in the country today. In 1986, the DEA seized approximately 235 kilograms (518 pounds) of meth. In 2011, the DEA seized approximately 2,451 kilograms (5,404 pounds) of meth. It has become so prevalent in society that one of the most successful series on cable is “Breaking Bad”, a serio-comic drama about cancer patient Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who spirals out of control from a man reluctantly looking to provide for his family when he’s gone to full blown criminal drug lord.
On a personal note, I have one cousin who escaped meth addiction but not unscathed. He’s as mad as a hatter in addition to having numerous other health problems and is permanently disabled. I also had the disappointing news recently that two more cousins from another branch of the family have fallen under its vile thrall. It is a substance that I personally consider evil without reservation and that is a term I try to apply very narrowly. I am for the reform of our drug laws including the legalization of certain substances, but methamphetamines are not one of them. I don’t think anyone in their right minds would consider this a drug that should be legalized after seeing the effects it has on people. It is physically and psychologically addictive and does horrible ancillary damage to the body.
It’s all very entertaining as television, but the reality is even more grim, violent and deadly than “Breaking Bad” could ever portray without driving away audience.
But is it wise to treat addiction as criminal matter rather than a health matter? Can we let methamphetamine users slide? Can we let methamphetamine production and distribution slide? Should law enforcement focus time and resources on manufactures and distributors and leave the addicts to the medical profession? Decriminalize possession for addicts but increase penalties for manufacture and distribution?
What do you think?
Sources(s): Huffington Post, Quad-City Times, NIDA, DEA
~ Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Blouise, I loved your story. I have a kind of funny one to tell. I’m the one who, like your kids, never tried any drug at all, not even one puff during college while the weed was so thick that you could get a “second-hand smoke” high walking down the hall in the dorm. My kid came to believe (how, I don’t know) that drugs were some bizarre, terrible, terribly unnecessary, dangerous stuff that nobody in their right mind would want. (I don’t remember saying any of this to him but perhaps I did; perhaps, also, he just formed this opinion on his own.) But after he was 18 and he was at college, he called ME and asked if I thought it would be OK for him to experiment with Marijuana!
I had no earthly idea! I told him I had no earthly idea, and would get back to him in a few days, and that he shouldn’t try any during those few days.
Then I did research (and back then, no internet, so it was library research plus asking all the people I knew for their opinions plus checking with half a dozen physicians and a handful of lawyers). When I called him back I gave him the rules:
1. Sure, go ahead and try the marijuana. SMALL SMALL QUANTITY.
2. Try it when you’re among friends you trust. NOT MANY OF THEM.
3. Never distribute, sell, or carry.
4. NO OTHER DRUGS, EVER, PERIOD.
5. No driving when you’ve been consuming.
6. Only get it from someone you know other students have gotten it from (and if you get it from a student, make sure it’s not someone who is doing any other questionable activities or selling other drugs).
7. If you have any adverse reaction at all, go to the doctor and tell the truth about what you’ve been doing and how you came to have your reaction.
So he started to experiment with marijuana and he loved it. Then he and the friends who smoked it thought they should tell me how great it was and offer to “turn me on” and I politely declined. They laughed when I told them I had never even tried it during college. My kid no longer does any of the stuff; he never had any bad reaction or anything but I think he outgrew it.
But one of his friends did meth, and got totally messed up. My kid and I both worked with him over and over to try to get him away from that drug. He also ended up in the E.R. once, nearly dead, and “reformed” for a while but then fell back into the addiction. His parents later put him through some serious rehab experiences, but not until he had started also drinking to extremes, wrecked his and their cars (thank god no vehicular homicide but that just by luck!) and all the usual etceteras. That was a horrible experience.
Good advice, Blouise. The one thing I would ad is that prescription drugs from the doctor or doctors are the most abused drugs today. Most going into treatment now are addicted to multitude of drugs but often mainly prescription sleeping pills, pain pills, and xanax. Some are going for adderall which is a meth salt. You know my story.
I do concede the point that there are indeed some people who would use meth if it were legal. But….But, I say make it legal and make that the choice. Do you want to end your life with this stuff or do you want to live. I think by forcing the aforementioned cousin to stay away from the drug you are either illgally imprisoning an individual or there is some small sliver of consent within him, allowing himself to be imprisoned. If the choice to live or die would have been made ealier in his life (forced upon him by the legality/availabillity of a dump truck full o’ meth), while life was more thrilling, he probably would have chosen to stay alive and never looked back. The alternative is that you are forcing someone to live who doesn’t want to live. And that sounds like torture to me.
Gary T
1, August 11, 2012 at 10:19 am
“The govt is our daddy, we are not adults, they know better for us. We cannot make these choices for ourselves.”
Yes, meth has a horrendous effect of some people, but not all.
In fact it is likely that most people do not suffer ill effects from the drug. It is just that we don’t hear from them; we do hear loudly from the idiot highlighted in this article, and we hear loudly from those who can’t handle it in any responsible manner.
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The focus group in this article are those who already obtain and use the drug illegally. They are ALREADY controlled by the drug. If, as you say, IF it is most likely that ‘most’ (?) people do not suffer ill effects from this drug, they are most likely those who obtain it legally with an actual demonstrated condition or necessity for it. To use this recreationally is insane. I have seen the walking corpses it produces…they all think they are having fun and it’s doing them all kinds of good!
Oh, they use that Daddy Gov argument too when they are justifying their behaviour….
It seems like Missouri is ground zero in meth. When I moved to KC in 1975 from the east coast meth was epidemic. I had never heard of it. It waned in the 80’s a bit w/ the help of Pablo Escobar, but rekindled along w/ crack..the ugly cousin to meth poisoning. My wife was a Fedeal Probation Officer and she has horror stories on how meth cooking and use is almost satanic. If you want to get a gripping view of this culture, watch Winter’s Bone. But make sure you take your prozac first. It’s set in southern Mo. and as realistic as can be, almost a documentary but w/ superb acting.
Cannabis should be legal, it’s insane that it’s not. I’m a decriminalized person for most drugs but certainly not meth..it’s poison. What we Americans need to realize is we need to stop blaming other countries for OUR problem. When I went to Medillin and Bogota to adopt our son in 1987 it was the peak of Escobar. I was in a coffee shop in Medillin having a nice cup of tinto. That’s made from the cheaper coffee beans, the good ones are exported. A young businessman was curious about my presence and we had a great conversation. Well, when you’re in Medillin in 1987 the topic of course gets to cocaine. This gent said something to me that changed my thoughts on cocaine. He said, “Our country produces the legal product of coffee. If the US stops drinking coffee we will stop producing it. The same goes w/ cocaine.” Ironically, shortly after that conversation Starbucks became ubiquitous and we Americans started drinking exponentially more java!
Great job Gene. I hope your cousin can stay clean. The Meth problem is a huge one, but I think any drug dependency issue should be a medical problem and not a criminal one. The only hope of stopping this destructive behavior is through the intervention of medical personnel. Maybe mandate that anyone found using this stuff be “sentenced” to a long period of time at a facility designed to help rid themselves of this drug ball and chain. Tough issue that needs to be solved.
Good article…..things to ponder……
I have lost many good friends to the ravages of drugs and one dearly loved brother to alcohol. I tried everything I could do to help them but nothing did and they are all dead now.
In an effort to save my children and grandchildren from a similar fate I used education and threats. Typical stuff to begin with like, “Drugs from the doctor are good; drugs from friends are bad.” etc. In Junior High I started with the random drug testing which was nothing more than a flashlight shinned into their eyes when they came home from a party. I wanted them to be more afraid of me than they were of peer group pressure.
I told them stories, true stories about friends of mine from the world of music who destroyed their lives with drugs and alcohol. These were people they knew about, people they had met, people whose music they played … graphic horror stories not told in the press.
I had no idea if my plan would work but my goal was to get them alcohol and drug free to an age where they would begin to see the destruction drugs and alcohol were having on their own friends.
I had no idea if I was following a correct path but it was the only path I could find so I went down it dragging them with me.
It worked. My oldest child had to go back for three separate lie detector tests with a law enforcement agency she had applied to because they couldn’t believe she had never used drugs. None of the kids have had to worry about drug testing for a job or a scholarship and took note of how worried their friends were/are. No body has been kicked out of their dorm room for possession.
My two children made it through the threat of their twenties without drugs . Five of my grandchildren are in their early twenties or close to it. I think they too will stay clear mainly because they have now seen several of their own friends totally lose their futures to drugs.
It was damn hard work and all the kids hated me at one time or another for my failure to understand how “cool” it was to get high. That passed the first time one of their friends was arrested.
In fact, the other day I overheard the 19 year old telling her 4 year old cousin, “Drugs from the doctor or your parents are good; drugs from friends are bad.”
I have no idea what the answers are to the questions Gene has posed. I do know this, methamphetamine destroys everything it touches.
Perhaps the best reason to legalize is we can more effectively prevent kids from getting them. It sounds so cliche at this point probably, but drug dealers don’t check I.D. For all of you claiming th sky will fall if we create a more permissive environment, I suggest you look up the example of Portugal. Posession of up to a 10 day supply is legal. No legalized production yet, but you can get it on the street easily now of course. This means that people are still producing the drugs despite “a focus on stopping the producers.” Drug use has declined in all categories except a slight uptick in marihuana use amongst adults. Use by children is down. Apparently it’s no longer “cool” to do drugs because they’re legal and people who use them are seen as sick people who need to go to the hospital to get treatment for their addiction sickness. And who likes going to the hospital when you’re a kid? Guys and gals, the solution is legalization. Give everyone a dump truck full of their favorite powder and let them go to town. If someone wnats to kill themselves, I don’t care if they do ti with a gun, a rope, or their favorite white powder.
You all have noble goals. But you’re denying reality. Controls don’t work. Never will. They threaten to, and actually do, kill people in some countries to try to prevent drug abuse. And they still make them and take them. What do you want to do next? Threaten their families for raising such horrible kids? You can’t save everybody, and I don’t think we should turn Earth into Hell to save everyone. The aforementioned cousin has a brain disease. A unique psychotic urge to take quick pleasures over the pleasure of a long and fulfilling life, borne by some disease or crossed wires in his brain. People die from diseases. You can’t threaten people with death for eating cheeseburgers until they have a heart attack or die from diabetes. Sure, death by obesity is slower. But it is just as expensive and damaging to he people watching the person eat themselves to death.
“The govt is our daddy, we are not adults, they know better for us. We cannot make these choices for ourselves.”
Yes, meth has a horrendous effect of some people, but not all.
In fact it is likely that most people do not suffer ill effects from the drug. It is just that we don’t hear from them; we do hear loudly from the idiot highlighted in this article, and we hear loudly from those who can’t handle it in any responsible manner.
So daddy govt says that because some people can’t handle it in a very public way, we then we all can’t handle it, and will punish those severely who do, responsibly or irresponsibly.
There are some habitually awful drivers, who cause accidents and kill people and themselves. Do we outlaw driving for all because of them?
Who draws the line as to when we say because some can’t handle risky behavior, all must be prohibited from that risk?
Methamphetamine is clearly the worst problem drug the US has yet seen. I remember lamenting several years ago that we would all be better off if the drug users went back to marihuana and cocaine.
Fortunately at least in one respect the local manufacture of meth has diminished greatly, in large part due to the control of percursors such as pseudo-ephedrine and enforcement. What has happened was the drug shifted production for the most part to Mexico and it is being shipped up here.
I can tell you from experience ignoring the enforcement of meth possession laws will be counterproductive. Giving a permissive environment for use will encourage more of it.
Alexander McNeely
1, August 11, 2012 at 9:48 am
….. Once again, why should I accept a police state to prevent someone else from having to make tough decisions.
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By that reasoning Mr. McNeely we should just roll up all the police forces and let the chips fall as they may. The ‘police state’ we are seeing now has more to do with economics than drugs and the drug lords and criminal damage surrounding meth has more to do with economics than drugs as well. I don’t want to be at the mercy of the merciless. Trust me, neither do you. People get hooked on lots of things for lots of reasons, that doesn’t mean we just say oh too bad and let them suffer any measure of damage….not if there is a shred of society left to our society that is. Addicts suffer from helplessness….why throw them to wolves unless you want to make monsters? Cops may not be perfect but they beat the alternative! [Now if we could just get them to focus on the real thugs and not the scarey mothers driving cars…]
As to your P.S., he can’t get a pizza delivered where he lives let alone meth. He and his parents live in the ass end of nowhere down a private gated road. If any of his drug buddies showed up there, they’d likely get shot if the dogs didn’t get them first. I know him and his circumstances a lot better than you do.
No. He’s not bitter, Alexander. He’s simply a junkie with no impulse control. He liked it. A lot. He wasn’t forced to quit by society. He was forced to quit because his failing health caused him to be in hospital long enough to get clean and he had no where to live but back at home because of his continued care requirements and he can no longer drive. If he could get some today? He would.
Your idea of no controls over any substances is simply not feasible. Not all drugs are created equal both in direct effect and in societal costs for allowing free distribution. This is not a naturally occurring psychologically addictive drug we are talking about, but a synthetic physically and psychologically addictive drug with huge associated impacts to mental and physical health that can last long after use has stopped. “It’s all drugs” is an argument of false equivalence. I’m for legalizing a fairly large range of drugs (marijuana, peyote, mescaline, cocaine should be freely available and LSD with a prescription) and decriminalizing others (heroin and other opiates) for many of the reasons you mention, but meth isn’t one of them.
It is physically and psychologically addictive and does horrible ancillary damage to families as well. Addiction is often a helpless response to a larger issue IMO. I think there is a real and practical place between criminalization and enabling, but only if it can be dealt with in the light of day. I doubt very much that there is any family that has not suffered from its effects at some time or another. Treatment, exposure to alternatives and those who have beat the beast….and personal resolve do more to eliminate the need for the drug than exposure to ever widening and deeper levels of distress….that just feeds the beast.
P.S. If your cousin really wanted some more meth, he could go get some. It’s not as scarce as you think. I think you cousin has more fortitude than you give him credit for. For instance, where I live I can get meth delivered to my house faster than I can get a pizza. I’m not even tapped into the worst of society, and simply because I know a few pizza delivery guys I can get nearly any drug known to man faster than I can get a pizza.
He’s just bitter that the world made it available to him and wishes he hadn’t had to make the choice and failed at the choice. He wants someone else to choose not to do the drug for him because he is too weak to make that choice. The fault lies with him, not the world’s inability to prevent it’s availability. Once again, why should I accept a police state to prevent someone else from having to make tough decisions. The more scarce it is, the more the financial incentive to make it, it will be manufactured. Iran executes drug dealers. Many countries execute drug dealers. There must still be drug dealers there if they’re executing them. How many don’t get caught? Even under threat of death they make, sell, and use drugs. Nope, control doesn’t work and it only makes things worse. We have the added negative bonus of all the botched raids and the militarization of police forces and the resentment against the police. You have noble goals, but they are impossible goals. The medicine is worse than the illness in this case.
Alexander,
Note the distinction between legalized and decriminalized. In the case of meth, because of the extremely high associative damage from use and the subsequent costs passed on to society, decriminalization of addiction makes sense. Making the drug freely available (legalization) does not. It’s not enough to address this particular substance solely as a health problem. We need to attack the supply. Meth has been around since the 60’s but it was virtually wiped out during the 70’s by a combination of LE efforts and increased imports of cocaine only to re-emerge in the 80’s and 90’s as a demand for a cheaper stimulant other than cocaine arose.
And I can find you one person who would start using meth if it were legal.
My cousin.
If it were legal, he’d be back at it tomorrow.
Give the people the drugs they want. We’ll never stop them and telling someone they can’t have something just makes them want it more. If they want the stuff, you’ve already lost the battle. Just be around to love them and pick up the pieces. At least they won’t die from overdoes once it’s regulated and they won’t financially ruin the lives of others to pay for the street markup. The totalitarian, absolute police state control that would be required to actually keep it out of the hands of people is too much to force on the populace. Education is the only thing that works. Find me one person who would start using meth if only it were legal.