Abbott's veto of Good Samaritan legislation responsible for hundreds of preventable overdose deaths

Texas legislators continue to discuss the wrong problems when it comes to addiction and overdoses, focusing on opiod overdoses and fentanyl - which aren't as prominent here as in other parts of the country - when the bigger problem in Texas is meth. (Most fentanyl deaths involve mixing it with heroin, and the black-tar heroin sold in Texas and California is too low purity to mix with fentanyl.) 

Digging into the data, Texas' drug addiction problem is less deadly than in the hardest-hit parts of the country, and more focused on speed than smack. Nationwide, heroin overdoses now outnumber gun homicides as cause of death, but in Texas, murders continue to slightly outpace the total number of overdose deaths.

IMO this obfuscation of state-level trends is happening because legislators are relying on law enforcement as experts instead of addiction researchers and public health professionals. Texas DPS and other agencies are picking up national memes and touting them, even if they don't track with Texas' experience.

That said, I was pleased to see that the committee is considering one solution that Grits worked hard on a couple of sessions back: the Good Samaritan law Gov. Abbott vetoed at the end of his first session as Governor in 2015. Reported the Austin Statesman:

[State Rep. Four] Price said it’s possible lawmakers could craft a new good Samaritan law, which protects people who call police to report a drug overdose from prosecution for some offenses. A similar bill passed the House and Senate with wide support in 2015, but was vetoed by Gov. Greg Abbott because it did not “include adequate protections to prevent its misuse by habitual drug abusers and drug dealers.” 

New data presented by the Texas Department of State Health Services on Tuesday showed similar laws in other states have resulted in as much as a 15 percent drop in opioid overdoses in the past five years, despite nationwide increases. The laws also do not appear to increase the number of drug users, the data shows. 

“It indicates that there is some effectiveness if implemented and crafted effectively,” Price said. “That is something we should continue to review.”

Keep in mind that there were 1,254 overdose deaths in Texas in 2016 - 715 from meth and 539 from heroin. If a Good Samaritan law would have reduced that number by 15 percent, that means 188 people died that year because of Governor Abbott's ill-considered veto! That means hundreds of  lives would have been saved by now if Gov. Abbott had signed the law in 2015.

IMO, vetoing the Good Samaritan bill was one of Greg Abbott's worst decisions as Governor.

Paltry Grits posting rate masks busy time at #txlege

For readers disappointed with the paltry recent posting rate here on Grits, I should mention that most of my writing these days is happening on Just Liberty emails and action alerts. If you haven't signed on to our advocacy list, please do so. Otherwise, here are a few odds and ends which merit readers' attention.

Good Samaritan bill up in House committee
Rep. Ryan Guillen's Good Samaritan legislation (HB 73) is up on Monday in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, but the biggest threat to its passage remains uncertainty about Gov. Abbott, who vetoed the bill last year and is now moving the goal posts regarding his concerns. This is a major public health concern. Overdose deaths are now twice as common in Texas as murders. Go here if you'd like to send a message to Gov. Abbott asking him to support Texas' Good Samaritan legislation.

Debtors prisons and deconstruction of the administrative state

On the same Criminal Jurisprudence agenda Monday, Rep. James White has a great little bill, HB 3279, limiting various debtors-prison practices. Hope to see this one get some traction. Anyone truly concerned with "deconstruction of the administrative state" will want to begin here. See a fact sheet on the bill from Texas Appleseed and the Texas Fair Defense Project.

Sandra Bland Act, DRP, up on Tuesday

Big day in the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Tuesday morning, with the Sandra Bland Act (HB 2702) and the most likely vehicle for Driver Responsibility Program repeal (HB 2068) both on the committee's agenda.

Halted execution implicates pair of capital bills
The Court of Criminal Appeals halted Paul Storey's execution last week in a move which implicates a couple of pieces of pending legislation. Prosecutors told the jury in the death-penalty phase of Storey's case that the victim's family wanted the death penalty, which turned out not to be true. Jurors were given faulty jury instructions which HB 3054 by Herrero/Smithee aims to fix. That bill was heard last week in the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and may get a vote as early as Monday. Meanwhile, the remaining issues in Storey's case reportedly regard whether Storey's appeals attorney could have reasonably discovered the true feelings of the victim's family about the death penalty. In other words, once again the quality of direct capital appeals are being called into question, which brings us to Corrections Committee Chairman James White's HB 1676 creating a new capital public defender for direct appeals (it'll need a catchier name than that). Maybe it'll turn out Storey's attorney couldn't have known the family's views, or maybe he just didn't ask them. But minimalist investigation and slipshod work product on direct appeal, along with cost effectiveness, are exactly the recurring problems that prompted the East Texas Republican to propose this new office. The appellate process should have vetted these subjects long before now. Storey's case could be a poster child for why these bills are needed.

When innocent SWAT raid victims defend themselves
A Corpus Christi man has sued the police department after a wrong-house SWAT raid in which he shot three officers. He was jailed for two years before being acquitted by a jury. Noted the Caller Times' Krista Torralva, "Police use of no-knock raids have recently come under public scrutiny and Rosas’ case has been included in national conversations. The Washington Post and New York Times wrote about Rosas’ case after his acquittal."

The End of Local Laws
Governing magazine says Gov. Greg Abbott wants to end local laws.

Richard Dreyfuss on Kerry Cook
Actor Richard Dreyfuss discusses Kerry Max Cook with Texas Monthly's Michael Hall. Grits couldn't agree more with Dreyfuss' answer to Mike's final question.

You gotta start somewhere
The Texas Tribune has published a couple of good primers on testifying at the capitol and making your voice heard by lawmakers. Nicely done.

Progress, slow but broad
While some folks understandably express impatience at the slow pace of criminal justice reform, it's easy to underestimate how difficult it was just to stop the upward trajectory of mass incarceration and begin to turn the curve downward. Pew's Adam Gelb describes the baby-step progress made on that front at the state level.