Louisiana Voice

Yesterday’s Washington Post ran an interesting in-depth series on national opioid death rates and its data, provided by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) turned up some interesting statistics for Louisiana where, with the exception of two parishes, the problem appears to have been minimal.

The highest opioid death rates occurred in the rural areas of West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky during the seven years from 2006 to 2012 when 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills were distributed in the U.S. by the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

It just so happens, to no one’s surprise really, that the Justice Department and the DEA battled against releasing the database on the argument that ongoing DEA investigations could be compromised. The information was released only after a protracted legal battle by the Post and the Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette-Mail. A U.S. District judge removed the protective on Monday.

The national opioid death rate was 4.6 deaths per 100,000 residents with the counties having the most pills distributed per person experiencing death rates more than three times the national rate and 13 of those with death rates more than eight times the national average.

Between 2006 and 2012, there were nearly 1.4 billion (with a “B”) prescription pain pills supplied to Louisiana. Of that amount, 258,600 pills were distributed by Walgreen Co. and Northside Discount Pharmacy of Slidell received the highest number of pills.

The top 10 parishes by number of prescription pain pills for the same time period, in order, were:

• Jefferson: 190 million pills;
• East Baton Rouge: 139.2 million;
• St. Tammany: 95.5 million;
• Lafayette: 86.6 million;
• Caddo: 73.9 million;
• Calcasieu: 56 million;
• Livingston: 52.9 million;
• Rapides: 51.8 million;
• Orleans: 50 million;
• Tangipahoa: 45.8 million.

Tensas Parish with 578,340 prescription pain pills received, was the lowest in the state with St. Helena Parish second-lowest with 1,055,440 pills.

The two Louisiana parishes which show up on the map had death rates of about 15 per 100,000, or three times the national rate. Orleans Parish might be expected to have been one of those—and it was.

The other, Winn, is nestled in the piney woods country of north central Louisiana where an opioid problem might well be the furthest thing from residents’ minds.

From 2006 to 2012, there were 4.3 million prescription pain pills supplied to Winn Parish.

Parishes with populations comparable to Winn and the number of prescription pain pills provided them included:

• Jackson Parish, with about 1500 more people: $3.4 million pills;
• West Feliciana, with 800 more residents: 1.6 million;
• Bienville, with 500 fewer people, 2.1 million;

Lincoln Parish, with three times the population, received 8.2 million prescription pain pills, less than twice the number received by Winn.

And, it just so happens, the term of Winn Parish Sheriff Albert “Bodie” Little coincided with the time frame of the Post data. Winn and its former sheriff are featured in my book, Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs: A Culture of Corruption. I’ll get to that presently with a reprint of that chapter from the book.

But first, a little history of how things got the way they are, according to the Post’s series.

When Congress forced the DEA to agree to a watered-down law, the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016, that gutted the agency’s ability to stem the flow of pain pills in 2016, the primary proponent to hamstring the DEA was Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tom Marino.

Marino was President Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s next—wait for it—drug czar. He devoted years to moving the law through Congress and it finally passed after another Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah negotiated the bill’s final version with the DEA.

As a stark demonstration of how money talks in Washington, the drug industry, between 2014 and 2016, spent $102 million lobbying Congress on the bill and other adverse legislation.

Marino accepted $92,500 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry between 2013 and 2017. Hatch, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, took in a whopping $177,000 from drug companies during the same period.

On Tuesday, Trump announced that Marino would withdraw his nomination as drug czar.

So, how is it that Winn Parish, with a population of fewer than 15,000 people, came to be identified as one of the two parishes with the state’s highest death rate from opioid overdoses?

Well, it should be pointed out that the death rate is calculated on a per-100,000 population and with a population of only 15 percent of that base figure, only two such deaths could escalate Winn’s death rate dramatically.

And while the Winn Parish sheriff during this time period went to prison for helping his girlfriend deal drugs, it was methamphetamines, not opioids. Still, a law enforcement officer’s participation in any illegal drug activity and the compromising of drug law enforcement across the board is raised.

Following is the Winn Parish excerpt from the book:

Albert D. “Bodie” Little: Winn Parish

It began in February 2011 with the first official word that Winn Parish Sheriff Albert D. “Bodie” Little was under investigation by the Louisiana Attorney General’s office. What was not said at the time was that he was assisting his much younger girlfriend in her distribution of methamphetamines. The announcement came on the heels of the execution of warrants and the collection of evidence at Little’s home and office by state police.

A year later, he stood convicted by a federal jury of drug trafficking charges.

Seven months after that, he was sentenced to more than 14 years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty on one count of conspiracy to possess 50 or more grams of methamphetamine and two counts of facilitating drug trafficking through the use of a communication device.

The attorney general’s office became involved when local District Attorney Chris Nevils recused himself because of ongoing personal issues with Little. Louisiana is somewhat unique in that the attorney general does not normally intervene in local investigations unless requested by local officials as the result of a provision pushed by local district attorneys over the objections of then-Attorney General William Guste during adoption of a new state constitution in 1974.

Federal charges resulted from an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Agency Task Force. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, Louisiana State Police, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, Shreveport police and Bossier City police participated in the investigation. Ten people were indicted along with Little, who was in his first term as sheriff.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie A. Finley said, “When law enforcement officers disregard the law it hurts all citizens. Former Sheriff Little knowingly chose to break the law and now he is paying the price for his betrayal of the trust the citizens of Winn Parish placed in him. We hope that this case, and the sentences imposed, sends a message that drug trafficking and corruption of those charged with protecting society from such crimes will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Little, a former Louisiana state trooper and former Winn Parish tax assessor was elected sheriff in 2007 and took office in 2008. Besides his drug trafficking charges, he twice asked the Louisiana Bond Commission to let him borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the office financially solvent. Revenues rose more than 29 percent from when he took office in June 2008 to 2010, from $1.7 million in the 2007-08 fiscal year to $2.2 million in the year that ended June 30, 2010. Despite that, Little incurred a $700,000 deficit in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010.

The State Bond Commission rejected Little’s latest request to borrow another $750,000 to fund operations. The Winn Parish Police Jury also refused to give Little any more money, citing the increases already given him. “Winn Parish wants good law enforcement,” the police jury president said at a special meeting, adding that taxpayers wanted the sheriff’s office run with the current revenue.

Little’s response was to threaten to close the Winn Parish jails and to curtail operations.

“What’s getting you in trouble is your deficit spending,” Said State Rep. Jim Fannin of nearby Jonesboro who was Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Looking right at Little, he said, “We try to work with you to keep you out of trouble.”

Fannin said commissioners looked at tax revenue the Sheriff’s Office has received over the years and at how much Little has borrowed. Members also noted how expenses increased and how Little had not reduced labor and other costs.

“That throws a red flag up at the Bond Commission,” Fannin said. “They ask me what’s going on. It puts me in an embarrassing situation.”

Little was also accused in 2010 of allowing a convicted DWI offender to leave the parish jail early, in violation of a state district judge’s order.

The investigation, indictment and conviction of his drug trafficking, however, reads more like the product of an overactive imagination of a TV detective series scriptwriter run amok.

Little, 61 and married, was accused of helping his girlfriend cover up her drug deals as a means of preventing her arrest. A state trooper who testified in Little’s trial, said, “It’s clear he wanted everyone arrested except his girlfriend.”

When Little was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2011, Federal Magistrate Judge Mark Hornsby said A.D. “Bodie” Little must get “out of the business of being sheriff” as a condition to getting out of jail.

Hornsby set Little’s bond at $100,000. Additionally, Little was ordered to take a leave of absence from the sheriff’s office, wear an ankle monitoring bracelet, and submit to alcohol and drug testing.

Little initially pleaded not guilty. His attorney Taylor Townsend of Natchitoches, said the arrest was political. Through Townsend, Little released the following statement:

A search warrant issued today at the request of an Investigator from the Attorney General’s Office in Baton Rouge has been characterized by Sheriff Little as totally unnecessary and an attempt to embarrass and intimidate the Sheriff according to his attorney T. Taylor Townsend. This search warrant sought to obtain a file from Sheriff Little’s office, which is a public record, and permission to take photographs of Sheriff Little’s home in Winnfield, Louisiana. Sheriff Little was completely and totally cooperative and the requested file was handed over and photographs were taken of his home.

Since taking office in July, 2008, Sheriff Little has worked tirelessly to rid Winn Parish of its drug problem and to see that its citizens are protected from drug dealers who were preying on young people in the Parish. He has worked hard to ensure that schools are safe and free of drug activity. He has obviously stepped on some toes along the way.

Sheriff Little’s political enemies have proven that they will stoop as low as necessary to embarrass, harass and intimidate him.  This search warrant ordeal could have been avoided if they had simply called Sheriff Little and asked for this information. Sheriff Little would have simply handed over the file and allowed the Investigator access to his home because he has nothing to hide. 

The root of this search warrant is a drug dealer trying to cut a deal to get out of jail. Obviously, this is more of the same—a political witch hunt by those who are either jealous or offended by his tough stance against drugs in Winn Parish according to Townsend.

You may purchase a signed copy of Louisiana’s Rogue Sheriffs for $30 by via credit card by clicking on the yellow button in the column to the right of this post or by mailing a check for $30 to: Tom Aswell, P.O. Box 922, Denham Springs, Louisiana 70727.

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Donald Trump has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that he is an absolute idiot, incapable of leading a third world banana republic, much less a democratic, supposedly civilized nation of more than 300 million people.

In fact, he has brought home to the conscience of thinking Americans the certainty that he has no grasp of how a democratic republic is supposed to work—and that, dear friends, is frightening indeed.

By tweeting that Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib “originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and who are “now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States…how our government is to be run” and that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came,” Trump scored the imperfect trifecta of being ignorant, racist, and an intolerant hypocrite incapable of the civil exchange of ideas—one of the principles upon which this country was built. You might want to throw in more than a little sexism, too.

• Ignorant because of his apparent belief that all four were born elsewhere; they weren’t. Three were born in this country while the fourth, Omar, was born in Somalia but came to this country as a child with her parents who were fleeing civil war in that country.
• Racist because that’s what Trump is, as has been demonstrated throughout his business career and during his term as president (see his statements on Charlottesville). It’s in his DNA and he just can’t overcome that serious character flaw. Even Lyndon Johnson was able to transform himself from staunch segregationist senator to civil rights champion as president because, as he explained it, “I’m everybody’s president now.” Trump has failed completely and miserably to grasp this concept.
• Intolerant hypocrite because he spent the entirety of the eight Obama years tearing his predecessor down at every opportunity, including the perpetuation of the birther conspiracy—the same type of crass behavior he now finds so unpatriotic. Not once did Obama suggest that Trump crawl back into the hole whence he came. Trump suggests anyone who is critical of our government is a non-patriot, a traitor even.
• By that reckoning, we should never complain lest we be so branded. Instead, all is roses and daises, a world of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil robots as it were. Following that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, the genocide of the American Indians was perfectly okay because it was done in the name of manifest destiny. Slavery was just fine and blacks were happy picking cotton: Phil Robertson of the Duck Dynasty even said so, so there. Vietnam was not a mistake despite the staging of the Gulf of Tonkin incident which, many claim never happened. Bombing Cambodia? Go for it. Watergate? Nixon got a bad deal. Civil rights murders of the ‘50s and ‘60s? shut up and pass the biscuits. Everything’s okay. Don’t complain or you’ll be ostracized as a bad citizen by Trump.

What Trump also does not seem to grasp is that in this country, the First Amendment gives us the right to be critical of our government and those who lead it—even the president. That’s that this country is all about: freedom of the free exchange of ideas. Even weirdos have the right to tweet their warped, demented thoughts.

It was Voltaire who said, “I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.”

If anyone has the right to say “go back where you came from,” it’s the Native Americans.

To see wrong and to say nothing does not a patriot make. My country right or wrong is, well, wrong. Support your country, yes, but try to correct inequities in the process. Injustices should be made just, and wrongs made right. To stand idly by and to pretend all is well in the name of some misguided perception of patriotism is to take the fast track to destruction.

Trump has every right to disagree and to take issue with the four members of Congress. But he has no right to insult them with race-baiting rhetoric. That feeds the frenzy of his rabid devotees but in the end, solves nothing

If our neighbor complains because our kids egged his house, where should discipline be directed? Under Trump’s line of reasoning, the pesky neighbor should be singled out for derision and ridicule because he didn’t like his house being egged by our kids.

If your child gets involved in drugs, you try to intervene as a parent, not a despot, to help him—if, that is, you have a shred of decency in your soul. I simplified my analogy as much as possible so that Trump’s more delusional followers could follow the reasoning. That’s because Trump said in doubling down on his bigotry that “a lot of people agree with me.”

Unfortunately, he’s correct. A lot of people take their cues and their talking points from the Idiot-in-Chief. How many times did you hear the expressions “fake news” “witch hunt” “no collusion” before Trump? Now you hear it spew from the mouths of his followers daily—because he and Fox News have conditioned them to do so—like so many Stepford wives and husbands.

Republicans, from Mitch McConnell, whose wife’s family is from China, to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, whose families fled Castro’s Cuba, should be ashamed of their silence.

And just where is our congressional delegation in defending the people’s right to express themselves? You know, those super right-wing conservative Christians we elected to represent all of us?

Sen. John Kennedy, the mouth of the south, has been uncharacteristically quiet on the subject. Any other time he’d be trampling over women and children to get to a microphone or TV camera. Bill Cassidy just seems to be missing in action.

Steve Scalise? Forget it. Even a bullet couldn’t shake his position on the right to bear semi-automatic weapons. If he won’t stand up to the NRA, he’s not about to stand up to this president.

Clay Higgins? A joke. He’s still deluding himself into thinking he arrested “thousands” of perps during his career as a public information officer for the St. Landry Sheriff’s Department. If there’s a bigger idiot than Trump in Washington, it’s Higgins.

Mike Johnson? Has he ever made a public statement that reflected a scintilla of courage?

Ralph Abraham? He says he would pay for their tickets out of the country. What an a**h*** that he would demonstrate such arrogance, that he would pander in such a shameless manner for votes.

Garret Graves? Too busy wrestling with FEMA over relief funds flood victims will probably never see.

Cedric Richmond? The only member of the Louisiana delegation with the guts to criticize Trump.

It would be great if the other five representatives and our two senators had a set of cojones between them.

One last thought: I love my country. Despite its warts, it’s still the greatest country on the planet. But that doesn’t mean I cannot speak out when I see injustice, corruption, or disregard for human rights and dignity. I’m a small, insignificant voice and I know Trump will never read these words (hell, he doesn’t read anything). But should he happen see this, I defy him—or anyone else—to question my patriotism simply because I believe he is mentally deranged.

I don’t agree with everything AOC, Omar, Pressley or Tlaib say—or anyone else in Congress. Nor do I agree with everything our governor or my legislators say or everything Ronald Reagan said or George W Bush or Barack Obama said. And I certainly agree with very little our pompous assclown president tweets. But the last act of a true patriot would be to attempt to muzzle them simply because I disagree with them.

It’s also the first thing a plutocratic dictator would do.

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