Madison 1st Selectman Has Advice on Pot Legalization: Don’t Do It

Madison First Selectman Tom Banisch is advising legislators to proceed with caution on the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana.

“You need to think very carefully before going forward (with legalization),” Banisch said, at an opioid conference roundtable discussion Tuesday morning in Guilford.

“We don’t need the money that badly,”Banisch said. He said he’s a believer that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to harder drugs and doesn’t believe a state such as Connecticut, with the drug epidemic issue already in the forefront, should be considering legalization.

The Office of Fiscal Analysis estimated last year that Connecticut could bring in $45.4 million to $104.6 million a year if it legalizes marijuana in the same way it’s been done in Massachusetts or Colorado.

Connecticut is still facing a substantial two-year, multi-billion budget deficit.

Massachusetts recently became the seventh state in the nation to establish a regulated cannabis market for adults. A total of nine states have enacted laws to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana for adult use. Lawmakers in Vermont and voters in Washington, D.C. adopted laws making marijuana possession and cultivation legal for adults, but not commercial production or sales. In Maine, sales are expected to begin in the fall.

Banisch made his comments as part of an overall discussion Tuesday that took a few seconds to bask in the good news that the death rate from the opioid epidemic seems to have finally peaked but quickly moved on to what new steps the state should be taking to decrease the still staggering death total.

Final numbers for the number of overdose deaths in the state for 2018 are still not in, but indicatations, state officials said, are the number should be less than the 1,038 that died in 2017.

That would be the first time in six years that there hasn’t been an increase in drug overdose deaths in Connecticut. The numbers of overdose deaths have skyrocketed since 2012 when 357 died, followed by 495 in 2013, 568 in 2014, 729 in 2015, 917 in 2016, and 1038 in 2017.

“The good news is that more people will not die (in 2018 than 2017),” said State Rep. Sean Scanlon, D-Guilford, who has led many of the state initiatives against the heroin and opioid epidemic. “But there is still reason to keep our foot on the gas pedal.”

The roundtable was organized by Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz, who is expected to be Gov. Ned Lamont’s point person on fighting the drug epidemic the next four years in Connecticut.

Besides Bysiewicz and Scanlon, State Sen. Christine Cohen, D-Guilford, and State Rep. Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, and Noreen Kokoruda, R-Madison, sat in on the panel discussion.

Also taking part in the discussion about what next steps the state should be taking in attacking the drug overdose crisis were parents of children who have either died or are in recovery from drug overdoses, first responders, doctors, a first selectman, and counselors.

“The governor and I want to do everything in our power to address this issue,” Bysiewicz said. “Connecticut has taken some very important steps forward,” she added, but she said there’s more work to do.

Listen to parents talk about the deaths of their children, Bysiewicz said: “I’m a mom - I can’t even imagine what some of you have gone through.”

What parent after parent, and advocate after advocate implored Bysiewicz and the legislators to do - was to do pass legislation that required drug addicts to be held, even if it’s against their will, after being treated - and not released back into the community to possibly go right back to taking drugs.

There are two bills that would allow or require first responders to take someone to an emergency treatment facility after being given Naloxone as an overdose reversal drug have been submitted to the legislature’s Public Health Committee.

Guilford’s Sue Kruczek, who lost her son Nick to a drug overdose in 2013, believes the bills are big steps forward in the state’s continuing fight to stem the opioid and heroin drug crisis, which killed about three people a day in the state of Connecticut the past two years.

“Withdrawal (from Narcan) is so bad. It is like flu times 100,” said Kruczek. She said her son was revived with Naloxone and then allowed to just get up and walk out. Nobody was called or notified. He died later that night of an overdose alone at his apartment.

One of the bills introduced call for “transportation to a treatment facility which provides medical triage to a hospital after administration or an opioid antagonist.”

The bill {media_2} has been introduced by Scanlon, Michelle Cook, D-Torrington, Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, and Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton.

The other similar bill {media_3}, has been introduced by Reps. Scanlon, Candelora, Kokoruda.
It “allows a police officer who has a reasonable cause to believe that a person who has a substance use disorder and is dangerous to himself or herself or others or gravely disabled, and in need of immediate care and treatment, to take such person into custody and take or cause such person to be taken to a general hospital for emergency examination.”

Part of the discussion Tuesday involved proactive steps that can be taken by communities as a whole to battle the epidemic - such as having discarded pill drop boxes at police stations and have all police departments and first responders trained and equipped with Narcan.

Guilford Assistant Police Chief Butch Hyatt said the Guilford police department had just all been through training with the proper way to use Narcan but when he told the group that the department still hadn’t been equipped with the overdose reversal drug many on the panel shook their heads in disbelief.