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By Sidhanth Srikanta
The biggest question for authority and power is when is too much? Is it too much to have a cop strolling your street once or twice a week? Or is it too much when cameras are always watching you?
While authority is the backbone of society, people argue that too much control will lead to a lot more chaos. One large example of this dilemma is the opioid crisis. The crisis spans from country to country and city to city. It is extremely prevalent in the United States. More policing and authority leading to fewer drugs on the street is a paradox; sometimes more policing does not work.
One example of this is West Virginia, where the police did not target just dealers but also the users; instead of helping users, they put them in the legal system. This resulted in more people using drugs that are easier to get and, according to the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, West Virginia leading the nation in overdose deaths since 2013. Despite strong policing and crackdowns on prescription, it still leads to an indisputable outcome. The problem was not that it was just the police presence, but how they handled the situation. They wanted full control, which resulted in a backfire of people resorting to worse drugs and anything they could get their hands on. It was a statement toward all policing that more authority doesn’t equal more good.
While we looked at one case where authority equated to worse, let’s look at another case where it actually helped society more than hurt it – Texas in 2014. Texas moved hydrocodone combination products (HCPs) from Schedule III to the much stricter Schedule II and changed how opioid prescriptions are handled. Instead of focusing on dealers and users, Texas instead reclassified drugs and monitored prescriptions closely.
Unlike West Virginia, the outcome of Texas’ actions led to the state having one of the lowest overdose rates in all of the United States. While still adding policing to urban/drug centers, they solved and helped renew their state by the way they treated this crisis, not just by establishing major authority.
We have seen two examples of authority – one that worked while the other did not. Authority is not inherently bad; it’s about how it’s used and controlled. West Virginia focused entirely on getting opioids off the streets and pushing for authority over distributors and users rather than users. Comparatively, Texas focused on a nuanced way to get it off the streets, by focusing on the prescribers and entirely banning it, while still pressuring dealers to get out of their state due to the amount of patrols.
It’s not about the number of troops on ground, but what they are doing on the ground. So when looking at the opioid crisis, it is only fixable by the right approach with authority.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
