(WATCH) War on Drugs

Original air date: May 19, 2024

By most measures, America’s war on drugs has been an abject failure. From our biggest cities to rural areas, fentanyl, meth and even a powerful modern version of marijuana have gripped a generation, fueling mental illness, crime and homelessness. Lisa Fletcher reports from New York’s Hudson Valley, where officials are still trying to crack the code.

Below is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl AttkissonWatch the video by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

On patrol with the Village of Liberty Police Department. With 5,000 residents in the Catskill Mountains, we are about 90 minutes from New York City.

Steve D’Agata has spent his entire police career here. He became chief in 2021 and has 18 sworn officers.

Lisa: What’s your biggest problem here?

Chief D’agata: The biggest problem is crime and the related issues surrounding the opioid epidemic.

Lisa: And what impact has the opioid crisis had on your community here?

Chief D’Agata: The most acute is the mortality. We have Sullivan County, the county that we’re in, which has the highest per capita overdose death rate in New York State.

The opioid overdose death rate in 2021 was 46.4 deaths per 100,000 people, well above the state average for that year.

Chief D’Agata: The officers are responding to the calls, they are responding to the bodies, they are doing the follow-up investigations. It’s a lot.

Lisa: Does it affect you boys?

Chief D’Agata: Absolutely. We unfortunately recently had a tragic overdose death of a 16-month-old baby.

Prosecutors say the baby’s death was caused by the baby’s parents smoking fentanyl and losing consciousness, allowing the toddler to access the drugs, which led to the toddler’s suspected overdose.

According to the CDC, 107,941 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2022, and nearly 70% of those deaths were caused by synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

America’s problem with drug addiction, drug trafficking and the crime that comes from it has been around for much longer.

In 1971, President Nixon declared war on drugs.

President Nixon: America’s greatest enemy in the United States is drug abuse.

Since then, federal tax dollars have poured in to tackle the problem and crack down on drug users, dealers and the major drug trafficking gangs. The federal government alone spent nearly $45 billion on drug enforcement last year.

Lisa: Since 1971, we’ve spent a trillion dollars as a country on the war on drugs. Have we failed, from your perspective?

Chief D’Agata: Yeah, I don’t think it’s fair to call it a war. Wars end, and this isn’t.

The chief says he has learned that we can’t just solve the drug problem by arresting people, and national leaders are increasingly trying new approaches.

In 2018, President Trump signed a criminal justice reform bill that freed thousands of people serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. On Capitol Hill, members of both parties are looking for new ideas.

Rep. Blake Moore: Richard Nixon, 50 years ago, he started the war on drugs with just over 6,000 deaths in this country. Last year, 107,000 people died from fentanyl poisoning and unfortunately, many of them are young and getting younger.

Members have heard from police and federal law enforcement officials that the fentanyl crisis requires more resources and a hunt for the money flowing back to Mexico, where gangs control production and distribution, and China, where much of the fentanyl ingredient is made and exported.

Patrick Yoes: Drug cartels are using precursor chemicals sourced from China to create pills that are deliberately made to look like prescription drugs like OxyContin, Percocet and Xanax. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that 40 to 60 percent of these fake pills are often purchased through social media and are laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Some now want the government to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

Former inmate and drug dealer Jason DeFord, aka the rapper “Jellyroll,” also testified, saying he is now on a mission to speak out about the fentanyl crisis.

Jason Deford: The story of the drug cartel that sent drugs into America is a story as old as time itself. It’s just not as deadly as it is now. Because to get back to your point, people don’t overdose because they do too much. People overdose because they do a little.

In the town of Liberty, the chief has signed his department up for a program that takes a more pragmatic approach, called “Hope Not Handcuffs.” It promises treatment and support to everyone who walks through the door of the police station.

Chief D’Agata: The police department has decided that our sole purpose is not to enforce criminal laws, but to take a holistic approach to public safety and, at the appropriate times, connect people with resources to actually get better, rather than just putting them in jail.

Lisa: Police officers are trained in part to be warriors. Is that a tough sell for some of your officers?

Chief D’agata: I try to create a culture where they see people as people, have a heart, are empathetic, understand that everyone is someone’s mother, brother, sister, father. And they treat them the way they want their family to be treated.

Although the strategy they are using here is not new and cannot solve the problems, they do believe it can make a positive difference in times of crisis.

For Full Measure I’m Lisa Fletcher in the Village of Liberty, New York.

Sharyl: What is the government doing to stop the flow of fentanyl into the country?

Lisa: Well, President Biden’s 2024 budget included over $300 million in border detection systems to detect drugs as they enter the border crossings. He also made a deal with China to try to stop the flow of chemicals to the Mexican cartels. That probably won’t do much on its own, but we’re going to hear a lot more about the border and drugs in the upcoming presidential campaign. Former President Trump says he thinks he can send in Special Forces to take on the Mexican cartels.

Watch the video here.

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