Can we at least agree that selling drugs in front of Seattle City Hall is wrong?

I was trying to catch up on the news after my trip to Europe and I ran across a post from my co-worker Dori Monson that referenced a new National Geographic documentary called “Drugs Inc: Seattle Blues.”

Obviously, I follow the news about the drug crisis locally, but seeing some of the players involved in the manufacture, distribution, sales, and use of drugs is jaw dropping to watch.

The film makers introduce you to a California Aryan Nation gang member that moved to Seattle because, according to him, Seattle drug dealers don’t even carry guns. He claims to make $500 a day controlling his Capitol Hill territory with violence.

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You meet meth dealers who brag about selling openly within sight of Seattle police. You watch a man, hiding his face with a bandana, manufacture drugs in his microwave then drive it to downtown Seattle. And you meet a police officer trying to divert a user into a counseling program.

Each of the scenes is devastating to watch, but one story really stuck with me. The story of a young man the show calls James and his mother.

After a heart breaking sequence where James’ mom shows the camera her safe where she keeps all her valuables away from her own son, we see James get into the back seat of his car to shoot up on black tar heroin. He says he needs to get $400 to $500 a day to feed his habit.

“I’ve put $10,000 of heroin in my body,” he said. “More than that, that’s just money from my mom.”

We then see James filling a familiar orange capped syringe with a dark brown liquid and then injecting into his arm without tying off his arm because he says he’s so pale now that he can see his veins through his skin.

“I’m getting a rush right now… warm and fuzzy. It feels good.”

James then wrestles a dingy mattress out of the trunk, shoves it in the back seat and descends into his drug induced haze only to have to do the same thing the next day.

When we see the headlines that more people than ever are living in their cars, many of them are like James from Kenmore.

Listen, I think most people have a sense of compassion for people like James, and we definitely feel for the situation his mother finds herself in.

The real question here is how do we turn this ship around? To me, it seems fairly obvious that we need radically change just about everything we’ve been doing up to this point.

Why? Because it’s not working.

Maybe a good place to start would be to at least arrest the drug dealers who set up shop across the street from Seattle City Hall. Can we at least agree on that?

You can hear “What are we talking about here?” everyday at 4:45 p.m. on 97.3 FM.

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