Drug arrests plunge, overdose deaths soar in California: Connection or coincidence?

Riverside County jail inmates are led down a corridor in this undated file photo. (File photo)
Riverside County jail inmates (File photo) 

Once upon a time, California’s jails were stuffed with low-level drug offenders.

This was wastefully expensive for the public and wholly ineffective for the drug offenders, reformers argued.

So in 2014, with the best of intentions, voters passed Proposition 47. This reduced a great many drug-related offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, and kept a great many low-level drug offenders out of jail. The money saved on incarceration would go into effective addiction treatment, among other things, reformers said.

Since then, there has been an interesting, and perhaps tragic, convergence of events:

  • Drug offense arrests have plunged 85% — from 137,054 in 2014 to 20,574 in 2022, according to data from the California Department of Justice.
  • While drug overdose deaths have more than doubled — from 4,519 in 2014 to 10,410 in 2022, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

Is there any relationship between these numbers? There’s heated debate over that.

Some folks — notably law enforcement and parent types — lament the loss of jail time as a carrot-and-stick to prod users into drug treatment. There are essentially no consequences now, they say.

Others — notably policy experts — say jail time was always an ineffective and dangerous response to drug use, and lament the dearth of effective treatment and harm-reduction strategies that can actually save lives.

This all plays out on a terrifying backdrop: The migration of cheap, powerful, deadly fentanyl into just about every single street drug; a global pandemic that destroyed any semblance of normalcy for years; and doctors’ tepid embrace of buprenorphine, the gold standard for opioid treatment.

“A perfect storm,” Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said.

Enlightening, perhaps, are the overdose death rates in two states with very different approaches to drug criminalization — California and Texas.

They’re the largest states in America, population-wise. Both border Mexico, where fentanyl-laced drugs enter the U.S., according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

One of those states has a much lower overdose death rate than the other. Can you guess which one?

Fentanyl: primary force

“There are a bunch of moving parts here,” noted Andrew Noymer, epidemiologist and demographer at UC Irvine.

“In some sense, the two trends are explainable in a vacuum. You get fewer arrests because Prop. 47 is working as intended, quote-unquote, and more deaths because of fentanyl infiltration. It’s all a bit unfortunate. In some sense, it’s just inopportune timing.”

Fentanyl is the primary force propelling the spike in overdose deaths not just in California, but nationwide, agreed Maryanne Diaz, a lecturer in the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Emergency Management at Cal State Long Beach.

“The rise in overdoses is not a result of Prop. 47,” she said by email. “Arrests and short jail stays, as were utilized for low-level drug offenses prior to Prop. 47, are a considerable risk factor for overdose.”

When a person who uses drugs is arrested and detained, even for less than a day, their tolerance decreases, she said. If they use again after release, they’re more likely to overdose. It’s much the same with short-term detox and treatment.

People rest and take advantage of services at the overdose prevention center at OnPoint NYC in New York, N.Y., Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. Also known as a safe injection site, the privately run center is equipped and staffed to reverse overdoses, a bold and controversial contested response to confront opioid overdose deaths nationwide. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The overdose prevention/safe injection center at OnPoint NYC in New York, in 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) 

California’s reluctance to embrace evidence-based policies and programs hasn’t helped, she said. Treatment is underfunded and can be hard to get. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have launched pilot “safe injection sites” in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco. In New York and Vancouver, facilities like this are manned by medical staff and offer testing kits so users know what’s in their drugs. Overdose deaths have dramatically dropped in these neighborhoods. They boost access to treatment and improve public safety, she said.

Diaz has a study under review showing that the majority of California voters would support an overdose prevention site. In the meantime, more harm-reduction efforts like syringe exchanges, drug education, naloxone and fentanyl testing strips could help — but are repeatedly met with injunctions and legal hurdles.

Treatment should not be coerced, and should never be contingent on involvement in the criminal justice system, she said.

‘Reclassifying drug crimes because of Prop. 47 is not why we are seeing such high overdose rates,” Diaz said. “Fentanyl, an ever-changing drug supply and a lack of harm reduction programs are why we are seeing high overdose deaths.”

It’s sobering to consider that, but for the back-from-the-dead drug naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, the death rate would be even higher.

‘Complete turnaround’

A Sharps container used during a weekly Orange County Needle Exchange Program that was previously held in Santa Ana before being halt. The group wants to start a new mobile exchange but local leaders worry about littering of used needles. (Register file photo)
A sharps container used by Orange County Needle Exchange Program in Santa Ana (Register file photo) 

Law enforcement types and some parents don’t necessarily disagree, but feel hamstrung.

Using the corrections system as a cudgel — go to treatment, or go to jail — can inspire resolve that might otherwise be lacking.

“I never ever thought I would be OK with my child being incarcerated,” said a mom whose daughter cycled through myriad addiction treatment programs in California, then wound up convicted of possession in a Midwest state with tough drug laws. Behind bars, she had mandatory treatment.

“It’s such a complete turnaround,” said the mom, who we’re not naming to protect her daughter. “She’s been clean for a year now. We feel like we have our daughter back.”

Prop. 47 aimed to ensure that spending focused on violent and serious offenses, maximized alternatives for non-violent crime and invested savings in prevention and support programs for schools, victims services and mental health and drug treatment. It passed in 2014 with nearly 60% of the vote.

It can certainly be argued that there hasn’t been a vast expansion of quality drug treatment in its wake. There have been several legislative attempts to rein in Prop. 47 — or repeal it altogether — but those focused on an “explosion” of property crimes, smash-and-grab robberies and shoplifting that legislative analyses said were exaggerated and/or erroneous, and got nowhere. An online petition to repeal Prop. 47, though, has gathered 105,000 signatures.

“Criminals using dangerous drugs such as methamphetamines and heroin now face little or no repercussions from law enforcement officers,” says the petition by Debbie Rouser of San Pedro. “Unfortunately these same criminals that use drugs and commit ‘petty theft’ crimes are the same criminals that commit violent acts and home burglaries.”

Deon Joseph, a law enforcement consultant who has worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for a quarter-century, said, “I hate to say I told you so” shortly after Prop. 47 passed.

A big homeless encampments line across the wash area across from the Chatsworth Metrolink station Thursday. June 1, 2034.Posts on social media as the "Chatsworth Skid Row" and encouraging the public to contact Los Angeles County Supervisor. Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing photographer)
Homeless encampments near the Chatsworth Metrolink station (Photo by Gene Blevins/Contributing photographer) 

“We have chosen idealism over our safety. We have chosen to be test subjects in social experiments over common sense,” he wrote on his blog. “I actually agree with making mere possession a misdemeanor, but a misdemeanor with some teeth at least…. There is zero incentive now for addicts or dealers to stop their crimes or seek help.”

Long before Prop. 47, offenders had many alternatives to time behind bars, said Barnes, O.C.’s sheriff.

“You had to try really hard to go to jail. There were a lot of programs available, and a potential felony was a great incentive to get into treatment and sobriety. That no longer exists. Misdemeanor consequences just aren’t as high.”

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