Judge Sylvia Sieve Hendon is the presiding judge of Ohio’s First District Court of Appeals.
“I
feel like no one can get me – I am a zombie. I have special powers ...
nobody can kill me. … They can shoot at me, but I still keep goin’. I’m
powerful and can see the future.”
Script from a bad sci-fi
movie? I only wish. This is a quote from a youth charged with felonious
assault with a firearm – a crime that has become routine on my docket as
I preside by Supreme Court assignment in the Hamilton County Juvenile
Court.
By his own admission this boy first used marijuana at age
12 and has used regularly and heavily since that time – and even admits
he was able to access it while in court-ordered placements. He claims to
have a “secret method” to beat urine screens and considers himself
absolutely “addicted to weed.”
As with most of his delinquent
peers, that isn’t the only problem. From marijuana usage he introduced
alcohol and now mixes a combination of weed, pills and alcohol to get to
his desired feeling, “like no one can get me.” He particularly favors
“lean” – a combination of codeine mixed with soda and sugar as in candy,
and says he “loves” how he feels and “cain’t stop.”
His addiction
is so overpowering, he once discontinued prescribed antibiotics because
they were “messing with” his illicit drugs of choice, thereby putting
his physical health in extreme jeopardy. The professional who examined
this boy for the court uncovered no underlying psychiatric disorder or
mental health issue which is so often the explanation given for aberrant
delinquent behavior. This youth is motivated solely by his overwhelming
addiction and the accompanying results of it. In his own words he
boldly boasts he “intends to resume use as soon as he is able.”
His
48 contacts with the Juvenile Court by age 17 – beginning with a
serious felony at the age of 12 and including three separate and very
expensive placements for treatment and rehabilitation at taxpayer
expense – find him now facing transfer to the adult court.
Why
tell this story when it differs really so little from what I’ve seen
during my 35 years – on and off – in the juvenile justice system?
This
youth’s graphic description of his journey from marijuana use to more
sophisticated drugs of choice highlights the imperative need that we as a
society do not become so mesmerized by the arguments that marijuana is
really not a problem, that we accept its routine use as part of our way
of life in Ohio.
Marijuana is not a harmless substance. Increased
usage, even if legal, will increase the need and cost of treatment.
Marijuana supporters like to compare it to alcohol. Apparently there is
some intellectual disconnect in that reasoning, since alcohol abuse
accounted for nearly 60,000 OVI cases in 2013 and countless tragic
consequences such as broken families, lost employment and, most tragic,
vehicular homicides.
The imposition of a lengthy prison sentence
may interrupt one defendant’s hellish dependency, but he has told us in
no uncertain terms that he intends to resume his addiction as soon as he
can. The next time he is feeling his “super powers” and his
invincibility, you or someone you love may be on the receiving end as
his helpless victim.
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