Noted author says fentanyl is game-changer; Thinks jail with treatment may help

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

fentanyl opiate heroin methamphetamine in laboratory with beakers in bags with pill and powder

Airdate: June 13th, 2023

 

The War on Drugs first instituted by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s and President Ronald Reagan in the 80s didn’t work to reduce Americans’ lust for mind-altering substances. With a heavy emphasis on law enforcement, we couldn’t arrest our way out of the problem. Prisons filled up and there still was no solution.

Within the last decade, the focus turned to treatment for addiction — especially opioid users.

But today, the synthetic drugs fentanyl and methamphetamine are ravaging the country and if they don’t die first, users aren’t seeking treatment voluntarily.

Sam Quinones wrote two groundbreaking books — Dreamland and The Least of Us — about the drug trade and drug usage.

In The Atlantic, he writes law enforcement should play a bigger role because America’s approach to drugs and addiction is failing and the affects of fentanyl and methamphetmine are so powerful, users can’t break away and find it difficult to seek treatment.

Quinones appeared on The Spark Tuesday where he said incarceration may be the only way these users can get off fentanyl and meth. But, he said jail alone won’t work. he cites jails that have what are pods for recoevery,”Jail becomes a place where you can go where you are arrested, and you can’t leave when the dope tells you to. Except in some of these counties, the ones I talk about in the piece, they are experimenting with jail as a place of recovery. Once you are detoxed, once you are beginning to think differently about the world, once you’ve separated blessedly from the damn drugs that are going to kill you, there is an option for recovery. And this is working in a very interesting ways in various counties in Kentucky, Ohio. These are states that have the longest experience with the opioid epidemic. And I think in those counties people are seeing that what’s been tried is not working. And so they understand it is really a community based approach.”