“(There is) a nation-wide push to investigate overdose deaths as homicides and seek tough prison sentences against drug dealers and others deemed responsible.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Friends of Overdose Victims Become Prosecutor’s Targets”  Dec. 18, 2017

Nationally, some 64,000 Americans died from overdose last year, up 86 percent from 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:  “Friends of Overdose Victims Become Prosecutor’s Targets”  Dec. 18, 2017

“Even in the cocaine and crack days, people didn’t die like this.” THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 12-18-17  Cmdr. Thomas Fallon of Hamilton County, Ohio on opioid epidemic.

“A union survey of hotel workers in Chicago found that 58 percent of them had been sexually harassed by a guest.”  THE NEW YORK TIMES Dec. 18, 2017

“…evidence has linked loneliness…to a host of psychological and physiological ills (including) depression, cognitive decline, hearing problems and stroke.”  Scientific American “The Toxic Well of Loneliness” January 2018

“Drug deaths among Blacks in urban counties rose by 41 percent in 2016, far outpacing any other ethnic group.”  THE NEW YORK TIMES “Opioid Deaths Rising Swiftly Among Blacks” Dec. 22, 2017

“Drug overdoses have now surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 55.”  THE NEW YORK TIMES Dec. 22, 2017

“…immigration offenses now account for about half of all federal prosecutions.”  THE NEW YORK TIMES Dec 22, 2017

ICE reported “24,476 of the 185,507 inmates in the federal Bureau of Prisons system were not citizens…” THE NEW YORK TIMES Dec. 22, 2017

“Drug-overdose deaths drove a decline in U.S. life expectancy in 2016 for the second year in a row…”  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Dec. 21, 2017

“if y’all think I did it…just give me a lawyer, dawg, ‘cause this is not what’s up.”  Warren Demesme said during police questioning.  The Louisiana Supreme Court held that this reference was too ambiguous to count as a request for counsel.  REASON Magazine, January 2018

73 percent of Alabama is within a drug-free zone, defined as extending three miles from schools, colleges and housing complexes and resulting in a five- year enhancement.  REASON Magazine, January 2018

“Tennessee is 17.1 percent Black, but Blacks make up 69 percent of all drug-free school zone offenders…”REASON Magazine, January 2018

More than one-third of the national’s 9 percent increase in homicides occurred  in Chicago. “Homicides Are a Neighborhood Problem” THE NEW YORK TIMES 12-28-17

“about 5 percent of city streets produce half of a city’s crime…” according to George Mason University criminologist David Weisburd. “Homicides Are a Neighborhood Problem” THE NEW YORK TIMES 12-28-17

Boatwright