PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX –

March 8, 2021 – As an emergency medicine physician, I often ask patients about their upbringing. Some describe terrible situations where I admit to myself that if I had been raised similarly, I might be escaping with drugs, too. I ask where they get the $50-$200 a day needed to sustain their habit. Many get others hooked because new users become paying customers. Then there’s petty crime, prostitution, and the major violence that plague our streets. I remember a discussion with one patient who had been a big-time dealer, and I asked him what he was making. His answer, “$25,000 per week, tax free.”

When I was in the General Assembly, in a 2018 public hearing, I asked Baltimore State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger how much crime in the greater Baltimore area was due to drugs. His answer: “Upwards of 85%.” Those numbers apply across our state. The drug trade is vast in scope and sophistication. People with substance abuse disorders need drugs daily, and there’s a global network to meet that craving. It starts overseas, where opioids and cocaine are processed and then distributed via well-established lines. The billions spent on drugs are funneled back to the drug cartels by financial mechanisms that would rival a Wall Street investment bank. Where does all that money end up? Ultimately, it goes to dangerous overseas drug cartels and terrorist organizations, like the Taliban, ISIS and al-Qaida. We continue on a policy trajectory that is destroying our society from the inside while shipping vast sums of money to those who would destroy us from the outside.

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