Over the past couple of weeks (or months), I’ve read a lot about the conflict between Gather Church and the lawsuit filed against our Lewis County commissioners over efforts to regulate a “harm reduction” needle exchange.
I’ve seen several articles suggesting the county spent something like $600,000 fighting Gather Church — and the American Civil Liberties Union — over this.
I called and left a message at a phone number I found for Gather Church to be sure that was the issue, but never got a call back.
I can't blame them. I don’t like talking to myself either.
I do find irony in the fact that the county fought so hard against the needle exchange practice but is now considering making money from the sale of marijuana.
I’ve always objected to needle exchange programs provided by governments because I wasn’t convinced people would use them in the way they are intended. I still don’t. But if a church wants to do it as a ministry, I guess I really don’t object to it.
But I do, however, wonder why spending $600,000 to fight it seemed like a good idea.
Over the years, there have been many anti-drug programs, but not much has curbed a certain amount of drug use.
Even the threat of death.
Nancy Raegan was mocked by experts on her “just say no” campaign, which was likely the cheapest program of the ones I know of.
Experts also mocked the D.A.R.E. program (which stands for “drug abuse resistance education”), calling it a failure, although having cops in class with the kids had other benefits in my view.
Experts and politicians decided decriminalizing it — essentially legalizing much of it in some places — has been a disaster deserving to be mocked.
Finally, the state legalized marijuana, licensing dealers to generate revenue for programs even more necessary because they did.
Poor policy makes the problem worse.
Somewhere someone came up with Drug Court, which may be the one program that is showing some success, but nothing is perfect.
But after all the deaths and dangers of using drugs such as fentanyl, the Washington State Department of Health must have lost its mind. Ads running on the radio are now offering tips on using hard drugs safely.
They even use “safe” in the ad, like it somehow can be done in a way that removes all risk.
If the “just say no” campaign was mocked, will they also mock a “just use safely” drug program as well?
Maybe they could produce some coloring books to help guide parents on how to talk to their kids about safe ways to use drugs that can kill the first time they are used.
This kind of message, probably created by another “expert,” is madness in my view and certainly sends the wrong message.
But then, I’m not an expert.
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And speaking of government programs, perhaps you might recall with great fanfare during our governor’s campaign about the need to hire more cops here in Washington. So he pushed hard to get $100 million for a program during the last session, but had no decent mechanism to spend it.
So as of the story in The Chronicle on Feb. 26, it had produced zero additional cops.
Crazy right? Not surprising, though.
Apparently, the problem is how to get the money from the state and into the hands of agencies that can afford the program and qualify.
I’m betting they’ll figure this out soon because if there is one thing they do well, it's spending other people's money.
Once they can access the money in just a short 18 months or so (hiring, training, etc.), they’ll hit the street — if they can find qualified candidates.
And the article also admits the effect will likely do little if anything to deal with the shortage of cops the governor promised to fix.
But that’s not a surprise either.
Very little, if anything, our governor has done has fixed anything.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@gmail.com.
