They said they were his friends, but he didn't know that fear was their master and a merciless one; it demanded his life and they gave it willingly. When he collapsed on the floor, struggling for breath after accidentally overdosing on heroin, they decided a call to 911 was too much to risk - the possibility of arrest for possession held greater dread than his imminent death. They hid the drugs in the backyard and fled, abandoning their friend to die alone.
When Andrew Plumb's body was discovered ten years ago, police wanted to investigate his death as a homicide, but his father knew better.
"My son was a heroin addict," Salt Lake resident Jack Plumb said. "His death was not a homicide. He died of a drug overdose."
In the last several months, overdoses of heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl have claimed over 400 lives across the country, and Utah is not exempt from the problem. In 2004, approximately 190 Utahns shared Plumb's death, and in 1999, drug overdose was the leading cause of death for Salt Lake County males ages 15-44, according to the Harm Reduction project, a drug addict help center in Salt Lake.
When 18-year-old Amelia Sorich's friends dumped her body in a Bountiful field after she overdosed last summer, Utah residents caught a glimpse of a growing problem in their midst, and there are those who are demanding justice for those who watch their friends die without helping.
According to Plumb, drugs have been a problem in Salt Lake City for years but it takes events like this to wake people up.
It's hard not to cringe when statistics such as those gathered by a 1996 San Francisco General Hospital Study found that 94 percent of those with initial pulses who receive emergency medical services after an opiate overdose survive. With 71 percent of injectors having witnessed at least one overdose, chances are that many of these deaths could have been easily preventable.
Frustrated law enforcement officers finally contacted House Representative Carol Moss, D-Holladay, and solicited her help to sponsor a bill that they hoped would provide strong motivation for witnesses to an overdose to call 911.
Moss, haunted by the similar death of one of her former students, embraced the initiative and subsequently drafted House Bill 391, making it a class B misdemeanor to not report a drug overdose to authorities.
"We have nothing that we can charge these people with, and yet they just callously disregard someone's stress because they're worried about the charge of possession," Moss said.
Opposition killed the bill in February and dumped it on the shoulders of an interim study committee for further research. The disparate voices are coming from a few surprising sources, Jack Plumb being one of the loudest.
"I'm a parent that lost a child, and in society's world that's not supposed to happen," he said. "As parents we have to look at the reality of our children's choices."
Plumb said he thinks the state should focus on helping the youth in making right choices instead of punishing them for the natural result of inexperience and immaturity. As he sees it, the people who left his son did so because they were afraid of reprisal.
"This is not a judicial issue," he said. "It's a medical emergency. My son was left on the floor to die because they were afraid. This bill, in my opinion, would just make them more afraid."
The State Division of Substance Abuse, state prosecutors and numerous substance abuse help centers opposed the bill as well, one they believe would have given even more cause of fear to those already determined to avoid jail at the cost of their friends' lives.
"There are many parents who have lost children because no call to 911 was made, and that resulted from fearing police," said Luciano Colonna, executive director of the Harm Reduction Project in Salt Lake. "To add another sanction to that would just exacerbate the situation. We're using law as a fallback strategy because we're failing in all these other areas."
The Harm Reduction Project decided to focus its efforts on what it calls the "making it safe to call 911" campaign. Theirs mirrors efforts of organizations around the country trying to collaborate with law enforcement in order to prevent arrests of those calling 911.
Naloxone, an antidote designed to slow the effects of a heroin overdose, is now being distributed at some needle exchange programs through prescriptions from physicians. But this is no miracle drug - in most cases the antidote will just buy time; time needed for emergency personnel to arrive.
And as more time passes, the more lives heroin will claim unless steps are taken to deal with the problem, according to Moss.
"You have responsibility toward someone who's in distress," she said. "You shouldn't have to die for making a bad choice."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug-Overdose Fatalities A Result Of Fear
By Katie Laird, Daily Universe (Brigham Young U)
August 9, 2006
Link
When Andrew Plumb's body was discovered ten years ago, police wanted to investigate his death as a homicide, but his father knew better.
"My son was a heroin addict," Salt Lake resident Jack Plumb said. "His death was not a homicide. He died of a drug overdose."
In the last several months, overdoses of heroin laced with the painkiller fentanyl have claimed over 400 lives across the country, and Utah is not exempt from the problem. In 2004, approximately 190 Utahns shared Plumb's death, and in 1999, drug overdose was the leading cause of death for Salt Lake County males ages 15-44, according to the Harm Reduction project, a drug addict help center in Salt Lake.
When 18-year-old Amelia Sorich's friends dumped her body in a Bountiful field after she overdosed last summer, Utah residents caught a glimpse of a growing problem in their midst, and there are those who are demanding justice for those who watch their friends die without helping.
According to Plumb, drugs have been a problem in Salt Lake City for years but it takes events like this to wake people up.
It's hard not to cringe when statistics such as those gathered by a 1996 San Francisco General Hospital Study found that 94 percent of those with initial pulses who receive emergency medical services after an opiate overdose survive. With 71 percent of injectors having witnessed at least one overdose, chances are that many of these deaths could have been easily preventable.
Frustrated law enforcement officers finally contacted House Representative Carol Moss, D-Holladay, and solicited her help to sponsor a bill that they hoped would provide strong motivation for witnesses to an overdose to call 911.
Moss, haunted by the similar death of one of her former students, embraced the initiative and subsequently drafted House Bill 391, making it a class B misdemeanor to not report a drug overdose to authorities.
"We have nothing that we can charge these people with, and yet they just callously disregard someone's stress because they're worried about the charge of possession," Moss said.
Opposition killed the bill in February and dumped it on the shoulders of an interim study committee for further research. The disparate voices are coming from a few surprising sources, Jack Plumb being one of the loudest.
"I'm a parent that lost a child, and in society's world that's not supposed to happen," he said. "As parents we have to look at the reality of our children's choices."
Plumb said he thinks the state should focus on helping the youth in making right choices instead of punishing them for the natural result of inexperience and immaturity. As he sees it, the people who left his son did so because they were afraid of reprisal.
"This is not a judicial issue," he said. "It's a medical emergency. My son was left on the floor to die because they were afraid. This bill, in my opinion, would just make them more afraid."
The State Division of Substance Abuse, state prosecutors and numerous substance abuse help centers opposed the bill as well, one they believe would have given even more cause of fear to those already determined to avoid jail at the cost of their friends' lives.
"There are many parents who have lost children because no call to 911 was made, and that resulted from fearing police," said Luciano Colonna, executive director of the Harm Reduction Project in Salt Lake. "To add another sanction to that would just exacerbate the situation. We're using law as a fallback strategy because we're failing in all these other areas."
The Harm Reduction Project decided to focus its efforts on what it calls the "making it safe to call 911" campaign. Theirs mirrors efforts of organizations around the country trying to collaborate with law enforcement in order to prevent arrests of those calling 911.
Naloxone, an antidote designed to slow the effects of a heroin overdose, is now being distributed at some needle exchange programs through prescriptions from physicians. But this is no miracle drug - in most cases the antidote will just buy time; time needed for emergency personnel to arrive.
And as more time passes, the more lives heroin will claim unless steps are taken to deal with the problem, according to Moss.
"You have responsibility toward someone who's in distress," she said. "You shouldn't have to die for making a bad choice."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug-Overdose Fatalities A Result Of Fear
By Katie Laird, Daily Universe (Brigham Young U)
August 9, 2006
Link
