Pubdate: Thu, 17 Oct 2013
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2013 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5QwXAJWY
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Mary Mitchell

DRUG SCOURGE DIFFERENT WHEN IT'S WHITE WOMEN

I'm already sick of seeing and hearing from the three Lockport women 
who injected themselves with a flesh-eating drug.

Amber Neitzel, 26, and her sister, Angela, 29, are admitted heroin 
addicts. Their mother, 48-year-old Kim Neitzel, also is addicted to 
the illegal drug. The women have become the face of Krokodil, a 
disfiguring man-made drug that leaves users with dead and rotting skin.

Police officials are trying to identify the source of the drug, which 
costs about $8.

For the past couple of days, the Neitzels have been all over TV, 
radio and print lamenting their use of the knockoff drug that has 
left them with scars and needing skin grafts.

What I find most interesting is how the media is presenting the women.

There's barely a mention that heroin is illegal, or that users are 
the driving force behind an epidemic that so far has killed 80 people 
in Will County over the last two years.

There also has not been a lot of tongue-wagging over the poor example 
Mama Neitzel's drug use set for her daughters.

Under the scandalous circumstances, these women are being treated 
with an extraordinary amount of decency and compassion.

Indeed, in this rare instance, drug addiction is actually being 
treated like a disease rather than a crime.

On the other hand, when police lock up young black men from urban 
communities on drug charges, these men are treated like a scourge on society.

For instance, at the same time the Neitzel women were showing their 
lesions, Keith Cozart, better known as Chief Keef, was getting a mug 
shot - and 20 days in Cook County Jail.

Cozart, 18, was ordered to jail on Monday after he tested positive 
for marijuana. When Cozart pleaded guilty to driving 110 mph in May, 
he was ordered to pay a $531 fine; serve 18 months on probation; 
complete 60 hours of community service, and submit to random drug tests.

Don't get me wrong, Cozart needs to slow down and make the most of 
his fame. If he doesn't get a grip on his life soon, he could end up 
getting in more serious trouble with the police and sitting out his 
youth behind bars.

Still, many of us tend to view the Cozarts of the world as criminals 
deserving stiff punishment, while people like the Neitzels are 
deserving of our sympathy.

This bias comes into play the moment a black youth is picked up with 
a bag of weed in his pocket.

While law enforcement has been focused on marijuana, heroin made a 
comeback on the streets.

Unfortunately, suburban police districts largely ignored the problem.

But I've witnessed enough drug stings on the West Side to know that 
many of the purchasers who stumbled down those dark alleys looking 
for a fix were white people who hopped off the Eisenhower Expy.

Now heroin has made its way to a new generation of users in places 
such as Bolingbrook, Braidwood, Crete, Frankfort, Lockport and 
Joliet. Over the last two years, scores of young people have died 
from fatal overdoses, prompting law enforcement in the region to 
crack down on suppliers, including the person that provided the fatal dose.

"We have a heroin epidemic in this country," DuPage County State's 
Attorney Robert Berlin said at a recent news conference announcing 
charges against 30 people accused of drug-trafficking.

But I don't see DuPage County hassling young people on the street to 
stop the spread of this epidemic. Instead, concerned parents have 
organized nonprofit groups such as Heroin Epidemic Relief 
Organization or HERO, an organization founded by two parents who lost 
their children to the drug.

And I don't think young women like the Neitzels will be called upon 
to identify their suppliers or participate in the kind of undercover 
operations that has landed thousands of young blacks in prison on 
drug conspiracy charges.

When it comes to illegal drug use, we seem to have a lot more 
compassion for users snared by addiction when they come from outside 
of the urban center. This bias has blinded people to the growing 
epidemic of illegal drug use, even when it was right under their noses.

Hopefully, the Neitzels will get the help they need to overcome their 
addictions.

But when law enforcement is still spending money to incarcerate 
people like Cozart for smoking marijuana when a flesh-eating illegal 
drug has made it on the market in the Chicago area, it helps explain 
why the War on Drugs has been such a failure.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom