Prostitution Bust in Walton

[Misty]

Feel blessed that it's not you.........I will bet that substance abuse led to turning tricks for drug money, more so than the love of money, and sex with skanky men, led to drugs.

Thanks to a first "true love" boyfriend, my quite-beautiful niece was lead heart-first to coke, to which she bacame addicted. Lack of $$ led them to swap coke for crack, then meth. Once she was "ugly" from picking her face from the meth itch, she started offering herself to "friends" for money. A "good friend" that worked in the 7-11 store she frequented agreed to pay her for sex one New Year's night after he ended his shift (BTW, he was married with two kids). When they met for the act, he drove her in his car to an out-of-the-way area behind a Walmart. Come performance time, he got nervous and tried to back out, which upset her because she was jonesing for meth $$; she told him she was going to tell his wife about his doings if he didn't pay up. He freaked out in the car, and hit her with some blunt object. He dragged her from the car, dazed and screaming bloody murder, behind the Walmart, and proceeded to try to strangle her. And old lady, walking her dog in an adjacent housing area in the wee hours New Year's Day, heard my niece's screams, so called 911. My niece continued to fight and scream, until he shoved her head in a shallow muddy hole in the wooded area where he'd taken her, and drowned her (her lungs were full of aspirated muddy water). He left her face-down in the muddy water and exited the woods to return to his car. Thanks to the old lady walking her dog, the cops were sitting behind the guy's car as he came into the clearing, and caught him red-handed. He is currently doing life in prison, with no possibility for parole....there is sometimes a melancholy justice, but you can't return the dead. She was a Mensa member, and a bright, talented, loving young lady, until she got caught up in "the things you do for love". Think about it when you think it can't happen to you or yours......

P.S. Thankfully, she died before she could go the route of a neck tat.......

Tragic but true story that plays out every day somewhere. That is the UGLY of addiction and what people will do for drugs.

I see it everyday right here in Defuniak...once aspiring students from WHS, are almost unrecognizable because of what that stuff does to them.

You're right too, it could be mine..it was never me but mine is just stupid for the wrong men that don't have drug issues...so, there but by the grace go I!

Couple days ago there was a story on WZEP about a monster who beat and shook his 9 month old baby so badly that it broke his arm and left him with severe head trauma after being thrown to the floor all because he was sick and fussy. I'd be willing to bet my last dollar drugs are involved and knowing of the "mom" (use to see her at work all the time) I wouldn't be surprised if it were meth. Poor baby is still critical.

 

[Jimmy T]

Methamphetamine is absolutely awful. It will change somebody you have known for
your whole life into someone you do not know or understand. It's truly heartbreaking.
And you don't really know how bad it is until it happens to somebody you love.

 

[Misty]

Couple days ago there was a story on WZEP about a monster who beat and shook his 9 month old baby so badly that it broke his arm and left him with severe head trauma after being thrown to the floor all because he was sick and fussy. I'd be willing to bet my last dollar drugs are involved and knowing of the "mom" (use to see her at work all the time) I wouldn't be surprised if it were meth. Poor baby is still critical.

The baby was actually 6 months old according to WZEP and died as a result of his injuries at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, FL.

I hope his father never sees or breaths fresh air ever again. The prison system also has a way of taking care of those who harm children, the elderly and animals.

 

[Sun Chaser]

...Telling lawmakers "Meth manufacturing is a scourge that has been all but eliminated in Oregon,” Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduces legislation that would make pseudoephedrine a prescription drug nationwide. Law enforcement, and health and prevention groups support the measure....
From this site showing the timeline of the meth epidemic: Timeline | The Meth Epidemic | FRONTLINE | PBS

Until Florida or the DEA gets serious and makes pseudoephedrine a prescription drug or just bans it altogether, we will continue to have a meth epidemic. As you see from the link, the pharmaceutical companies that make pseudoephedrine have lobbied hard to not let this happen..

Completely outlaw pseudoephedrine and the meth epidemic has a chance to go the way of the quaalude.

 

[sunspotbaby]

Feel blessed that it's not you.........I will bet that substance abuse led to turning tricks for drug money, more so than the love of money, and sex with skanky men, led to drugs.

Thanks to a first "true love" boyfriend, my quite-beautiful niece was lead heart-first to coke, to which she bacame addicted. Lack of $$ led them to swap coke for crack, then meth. Once she was "ugly" from picking her face from the meth itch, she started offering herself to "friends" for money. A "good friend" that worked in the 7-11 store she frequented agreed to pay her for sex one New Year's night after he ended his shift (BTW, he was married with two kids). When they met for the act, he drove her in his car to an out-of-the-way area behind a Walmart. Come performance time, he got nervous and tried to back out, which upset her because she was jonesing for meth $$; she told him she was going to tell his wife about his doings if he didn't pay up. He freaked out in the car, and hit her with some blunt object. He dragged her from the car, dazed and screaming bloody murder, behind the Walmart, and proceeded to try to strangle her. And old lady, walking her dog in an adjacent housing area in the wee hours New Year's Day, heard my niece's screams, so called 911. My niece continued to fight and scream, until he shoved her head in a shallow muddy hole in the wooded area where he'd taken her, and drowned her (her lungs were full of aspirated muddy water). He left her face-down in the muddy water and exited the woods to return to his car. Thanks to the old lady walking her dog, the cops were sitting behind the guy's car as he came into the clearing, and caught him red-handed. He is currently doing life in prison, with no possibility for parole....there is sometimes a melancholy justice, but you can't return the dead. She was a Mensa member, and a bright, talented, loving young lady, until she got caught up in "the things you do for love". Think about it when you think it can't happen to you or yours......

P.S. Thankfully, she died before she could go the route of a neck tat.......

Happy2Bme, I'm in tears reading this post. First, let me say I am so very sorry for your family's loss. Every day my husband and I wake up and wonder if our son is still breathing air. We haven't seen him in almost a year. He's a heroin addict. After stealing from everyone he and his girlfriend knew to support their habits, we couldn't allow him to come around our two much younger children anymore. He now lives in another state, and never talks to us. It's so hard because he could have been anything he wanted to be, but he's just an addict now. It's not our son, or a big brother, or a hard worker, or a Dad. It's someone we don't know anymore.

 

[Teresa]

Happy2Bme, I'm in tears reading this post. First, let me say I am so very sorry for your family's loss. Every day my husband and I wake up and wonder if our son is still breathing air. We haven't seen him in almost a year. He's a heroin addict. After stealing from everyone he and his girlfriend knew to support their habits, we couldn't allow him to come around our two much younger children anymore. He now lives in another state, and never talks to us. It's so hard because he could have been anything he wanted to be, but he's just an addict now. It's not our son, or a big brother, or a hard worker, or a Dad. It's someone we don't know anymore.

So sorry to hear about your son. My family has a story too about my beautiful niece. My first niece we all adored so much. Heroine is the worst kind of addiction. There is almost no way out.

 

[Misty]

Stories like this play out all over the country everyday. It's always someones child or someones loved one. As tragic as they are, they underscore a deeper problem. Behind almost every single addiction in the world there lies a deeper problem. Mental illness! (Manic depression, schizophrenia, bi-polar, PTSD, alcoholism... endless list)

Lawmakers think that locking people up and throwing away the key is going to solve all the ills that drugs and addicts create in their quest to obtain drugs. It solves nothing. Taxpayers foot the bill to keep drugs addicts in prison sometimes in excess of 20 or 30 years for first time convictions. Mandatory minimums = EPIC FAIL.

Until we (as a society) recognize that whats really needed are effective mental health treatment programs these stories will continue to be the bane of our existence. They will continue to hurt the ones who love their addicts even from a distance.

I applaud the Sheriff for wanting to take the drugs off the streets and I think he is doing a great job. Unfortunately, the majority of arrests he had made in the last 2 months are repeat offenders (3 or 4 strikes already) and without effective treatment programs, jobs, affordable housing and hope for a better tomorrow they will continue through the court system until they are locked up and the taxpayers foot the bill.

 

[Teresa]

Stories like this play out all over the country everyday. It's always someones child or someones loved one. As tragic as they are, they underscore a deeper problem. Behind almost every single addiction in the world there lies a deeper problem. Mental illness! (Manic depression, schizophrenia, bi-polar, PTSD, alcoholism... endless list)

Lawmakers think that locking people up and throwing away the key is going to solve all the ills that drugs and addicts create in their quest to obtain drugs. It solves nothing. Taxpayers foot the bill to keep drugs addicts in prison sometimes in excess of 20 or 30 years for first time convictions. Mandatory minimums = EPIC FAIL.

Until we (as a society) recognize that whats really needed are effective mental health treatment programs these stories will continue to be the bane of our existence. They will continue to hurt the ones who love their addicts even from a distance.

I applaud the Sheriff for wanting to take the drugs off the streets and I think he is doing a great job. Unfortunately, the majority of arrests he had made in the last 2 months are repeat offenders (3 or 4 strikes already) and without effective treatment programs, jobs, affordable housing and hope for a better tomorrow they will continue through the court system until they are locked up and the taxpayers foot the bill.

I agree completely. There must be a better way for communities to respond to addiction and all the associated crimes, etc. Families truly can't cope with it. What can our communities do? And, yes, mental illness is often the underlying issue with so many.

Just Say No ain't going to cut it these days. Young people are dying in crazy numbers, especially in some of our bigger cities - it's an epidemic from the stories I've heard from friends and family in Birmingham, AL.

There are some police departments such as Gloucester MA trying to provide support for addicts through new programs. I've heard good stories about this one over the last several months...

The Boston Globe

More than 100 drug-addicted people in Gloucester have found their way to treatment through the local police force, which on June 1 began a program that has officers seeking to help, rather than arrest, opioid users.

Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello said Friday that his department has helped 109 people get into treatment. Known as the Angel initiative, the program allows people to come to the police station, surrender their drugs, and ask for help.

View Story
In Gloucester, shift on heroin
Since the police’s Angel Program began on June 1, 30 addicts have been fast-tracked into rehab.

State health officials are in the process of searching for a director of addiction and recovery policy, said Rhonda Mann, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

Mann said the position should be filled by the fall, and the individual will “live, breathe, and own” how to fight the opioid crisis.

In addition, state officials will be looking at local efforts to battle addiction, including in Gloucester, where Mann described the Angel program as “incredible.”

“We are very supportive of what cities and towns are trying to do in their areas to make a dent in this problem,” Mann said. “It’s great information on what’s working, what solutions are.”

It’s not just Massachusetts that is welcoming the program, said John Rosenthal, the cofounder and chair of the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, which helps fund Gloucester’s efforts.

As of this week, Rosenthal’s nonprofit, which he founded alongside Campanello, partnered with Illinois’s Dixon Police Department and Lee County Sheriff’s Department to implement Angel-like programs.

That comes after the Arlington, Methuen, and Andover police departments have launched similar programs in Massachusetts, Rosenthal said.

“I believe that there would be more people suffering from opioid addiction that are dead if not for the Gloucester initiative,” Rosenthal said.

He hopes the creation of similar programs will save more lives.

Gloucester’s program already has ties with about 40 treatment centers in 15 states.

Sometimes addicts can go to facilities in Massachusetts, others can be sent as far as California or Tennessee. So far, Gloucester’s 109 have gone to 20 different centers in six states.

“This program blew up the whole notion [that] there are no beds,” Rosenthal said. “There are a lot of beds around. The question is: Can you afford it?”

In Gloucester, the answer is yes, largely because treatment providers have stepped up, said Rosenthal, who also collects donations for his group.

Some treatment facilities offer “scholarships” to cover patients’ care costs, Rosenthal said. The Gloucester police have also used seized drug money — under $5,000 — to cover expenses such as patients’ transportation to treatment, Campanello noted.

Many of the participants are homeless, Gloucester police said. Officials say about 40 percent are from Gloucester and Cape Ann, and 16 percent have come from outside Massachusetts.

Campanello was uncertain when the program first launched whether people would willingly seek help. But he said he is now encouraged by the trust his department has built with the community.

He said it is still early to tell how recovery is going for those in treatment.

“Many are doing very well,” he said, but he has seen a few relapses.

“That’s part of the illness,” he said. “We’ll help you again.”

He views someone knowing where to get help, rather than starting to use for six months, a success.

Rosenthal hopes that a year from now, hundreds of treatment centers and police departments will partner with his group.

“Together, we’ll solve this problem,” he said.

_______________

See Gloucester Police Department program updates on website. Good success so far!
Gloucester Police Report on Early Successes Since Start of ANGEL Initiative
23 Percent Drop in Quality of Life Crimes, Figures Suggest Treatment is more Cost Efficient than Incarceration
260 People in Treatment Since June 1

 

[Misty]

That article validates that effective treatment programs work. Drug courts work. (We don't have drug courts here.) The Sheriff arrests them (that's his job) and the courts have no way to effectively sentence/deal with them (again Mandatory Minimums = EPIC FAIL) so they end up back on the streets or in prison. Prison = free housing for the inmate, 3 meals a day, a cot and a shower...(not many effective treatment programs in prison either) and we foot the bill. Sad part is, society was footing the bill for them to start with by paying for the crimes the addicts perpetrate to obtain drugs.

Maybe its selfish on my part to think the County has some responsibility to its citizens and one would think that if it can be done in Gloucester MA its not a pipe dream to expect the Sheriff and his multi million dollar budget could do more than just book em.

Again let me emphasize, I think the Sheriff does a great job at arresting them but putting them back on the streets without effective treatment isn't working. I'm not suggesting that the Sheriff actually fund treatment programs but I am suggesting that with the enormous resources available to the Sheriff and his connections to the court system here that there has got to be a better way.

 

[Misty]

Sun Chaser wrote:

"Meth manufacturing is a scourge that has been all but eliminated in Oregon,” Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduces legislation that would make pseudoephedrine a prescription drug nationwide. Law enforcement, and health and prevention groups support the measure....

It's my opinion that lawmakers don't want to ban or at least make pseudoephedrine "prescription only" because there is to much money to be made by big pharma, the feds and even on a local and state level. Large drug busts generally result in large amounts of money being confiscated by all the aforementioned agencies and create revenue.