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Girard judge steps up effort to address drug addiction and overdose deaths
By Ed Runyan
GIRARD
When Judge Jeffrey Adler of Girard Municipal Court realized in early January 2014 that a young man on probation in his court had died from a heroin overdose, he was affected by it enough to get the young man’s photo and place it on a poster board.
It wasn’t long before he added photos of a second person from his court, then a third, fourth and fifth. By the end of the year, 16 pictures covered two boards.
Judge Adler displayed the boards in his courtroom and started pointing to them while talking to the many drug addicts who stood before him in 2014, hoping that seeing the faces of others — who had died of their addiction — might make them see the danger of what they were doing.
Many of the addicts say they will clean up their lives, the judge said.
So he points to the photos and says: “Every one of these people stood before me and said the same thing.”
Judge Adler added that heroin is a “horrible drug. It changes the chemicals in your brain.”
He doesn’t know how many people heeded the warning, but he thinks it’s worth the effort.
“Maybe the shock value of seeing [the photos] will get them the help they need,” he said. “It’s an epidemic. You need to think outside the box and do something.”
He said the addiction problem is affecting nearly every family in the community: “It can happen to anybody. That’s what’s so scary about it.”
Trumbull County had 54 overdose deaths in 2014, most of them heroin-related. Coroner Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk said the spike in overdose deaths in the past few months suggests the county will have a record number in 2015.
One woman in her early 20s was in Judge Adler’s court just before Christmas last year after being caught injecting heroin in the restroom of the Taco Bell in Hubbard. The judge said he could have released her from jail, but she had a daughter, so he held her in jail for a week.
“I said, ‘I don’t want your 6-year-old daughter to wake up and find her mom dead under the Christmas tree.’”
The woman has been under supervision of the court since then and has passed all of her court-imposed drug screens, which are done two to three times per week. “As far as I know, she’s been clean since December,” the judge said.
Judge Adler said a few people have complained about the photos, but he has verified the cause of death at the coroner’s office, and the pictures are public records, such as jail booking mugs.
Darla Bizub, a probation officer for Girard Municipal Court, said her interactions with the court’s drug addicts can be heartbreaking because of the number of them who don’t survive.
“They become like family. When one of them dies, you feel so bad. We feel like we want to do more,” she said.
The court started a drug court two months ago to give additional time and attention to the problem. The county common pleas court and Newton Falls Municipal Court also have drug courts.
“We support them in their family lives, work lives. They have the support of the judge and all the people down here,” Bizub said.
“They need a new environment” because addiction can be “all they know,” Judge Adler said.
“We do not let them hang with other probationers. Some want to move, so we help them move,” Bizub added.
The drug court has five people.
Bizub said one of the greatest needs now is more opportunites for residential treatment for addicts. They need a program of nine months or more, but no facilities in Trumbull County offer it. She has helped men get into a facility in Cleveland and women get into another Cleveland facility.
“I feel like every day it’s a battle. In 19 years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bizub said.
The judge said he respects the decision of the LoGiudice family of Boardman recently to come forward in Donny LoGiudice’s obituary and indicate that he died of heroin mixed with another substance.
“That’s what you need, is for people to say: ‘This is what happened,’” the judge said. The movie “The Anonymous People” says there are 23 million Americans in long-term recovery from alcohol or other drugs, the judge noted.
“They are known as the anonymous people because nobody goes ahead and says ‘I’m a former drug addict.’ The movie says people need to start treating it as a disease. I think [the stigma of addiction] inhibits people from getting the help they need.”
Judge Adler and others have noted that addiction costs society much more than lives.
“I think 80 percent of the crime in my court is heroin-related,” the judge said. “Thefts at Walmart, break-ins. It’s amazing how many people are driving around high on heroin.”
A maintenance worker has twice found hypodermic needles in the restroom at the court, he said.
“It’s something you can’t ignore. I think it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before,” he said.