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Lynn Walton presided over the meeting today. Wes Brooks provided the opening prayer and Stew Dean led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Lynn led the club in the Four Way Test. The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn in Hattiesburg and via Zoom.
Lynn thanked Mallory for filling in for her the past two weeks. She reminded everyone to bring in an item for the silent auction. A sign-up sheet is being circulated at this meeting. Members will be ringing the bells for the Salvation Army during December. Richard Topp is developing the schedule. You can sign up to ring the bells on our Clubrunner site. Members were reminded that this is the last meeting for the month of November, due to the Thanksgiving holidays.
Mark Killingsworth introduced Brent Montague who is the CEO of End it for Good. He introduced our guest speaker, Christina Dent who is the founder and President of the organization. She is a native of the Greater Jackson area.
Christina says the number one goal of End it for Good is to do no harm. The “it” in the organization’s name is drugs. The focus of the organization is creating less harm from drug abuse, focusing on the individual.
She founded the organization after becoming a foster parent for a child who was taken away from his mother because of her drug abuse. She saw the love the mother had for the child and saw the harm the criminal justice system caused the mother and her son. At that point, Christina changed her opinion about the war on drugs. Thankfully the mother went into rehab and remains drug-free today. Had she gone to prison, she would likely have continued her abuse. Christina decided that the criminal justice system isn’t the right agency to fight the war on drugs.
Keeping drugs illegal, the drug market shifts to gangs and cartels. It is estimated that the illegal drug market is worth about $500 billion to those gangs and cartels each year. Most of the violent crimes committed in our country are as a result of illegal drugs. By keeping drugs illegal, we lose control of the product. In 2020, 82% of opioid deaths were from fentanyl. The users had no idea of how much fentanyl they were consuming. By criminalizing the consumer, they go from patient to criminal. Today there are 3,000 non-violent drug offenders in our state prison and thousands more in local and county jails. Christina says we could better use the money being spent on criminalizing these individuals by getting them into rehab. In her opinion, the war on drugs has not worked.
Portugal had a heroin crisis several years ago. That country decided to decriminalize possession of all drugs. That put the drug user back into the category of a patient and not a criminal. They have seen a marked decrease in illegal drug use since that decision was made. They are currently spending 90% of their illegal drug budget on treatments and 10% on enforcement. In our country, the ratios are exactly the opposite. Not only has drug addiction dropped in Portugal but drug-related crime has dropped as well. Although Portugal’s system isn’t a perfect solution, it is realistic. Christina encourages us to consider the absolute value of a single person.
Lynn thanked Christina for the very informative remarks. There being no further business to come before the club, she adjourned the meeting with our motto: “Service Above Self.”