JASPER, Ala. \u2014 Megan Dunn, who has struggled with addiction since her teens, points to the moment her life went \u201cdeeply downhill.\u201d<\/p>\n

After dropping out of high school, she gave birth at age 19 to a son she named Preston. Six weeks later, Dunn said, he died of sudden infant death syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom then on, I went into this, like, PTSD, depression,\u201d said Dunn, now 28.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the baby\u2019s death, Dunn said, she started using pain pills again. Eventually, she said, she was arrested on charges related to her illicit drug use, such as trespassing. She said she has had more than 30 stays in Walker County\u2019s jail, a brick building in downtown Jasper. And each time, Dunn said, she was forced into drug withdrawal in her cell without medical care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was literally praying to God to end me,\u201d Dunn said about the pain and despair she felt.<\/p>\n

People with drug addictions fill U.S. jails and are often left to endure withdrawal in concrete cells rather than in medical facilities. That\u2019s especially true in Alabama, which has some of the toughest drug laws in the country. More than 5,000 people were arrested in Alabama on drug charges in 2021, and more than 90% of those were for possessing drugs rather than selling them, according to state data.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dunn survived her stay in a holding cell in Walker County\u2019s jail that\u2019s known, she said, as the \u201cdrunk tank,\u201d a concrete room that lacks water, a bed, or a toilet. Others have not.<\/p>\n

Anthony Mitchell, who would later die in the custody of the Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office, is shown in a photo provided by his family.(Margaret Mitchell)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In January, Anthony Mitchell, 33, allegedly froze to death after spending 14 days in the tank, according to a federal lawsuit<\/a> his family filed in February against Sheriff Nick Smith, his deputies, and other jail employees.<\/p>\n
Mitchell had \u201cspiraled into worsening drug addiction,\u201d the lawsuit said, and his cousin called 911 to send an ambulance to his home because Mitchell \u201cappeared to be having a mental breakdown.\u201d Instead, sheriff\u2019s deputies arrived and then a SWAT team, the lawsuit said. On Facebook, the sheriff\u2019s office posted that \u201cMitchell brandished a handgun\u201d and, from the scene, a deputy published a photo of his arrest, the suit said.<\/p>\n
In jail, Mitchell was \u201cdenied access to medical treatment,\u201d the suit said, citing video footage from the jail, and he died in custody. His death has sparked a debate in Walker County about the treatment by law enforcement of people with addiction and mental illness.<\/p>\n
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**Crime and Punishment: \u2018People Are Scared to Say \u201cI Need Help\u201d\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n**
**Walker County, nestled in northwestern Alabama\u2019s Appalachian foothills and dotted with coal mines, has one of the nation\u2019s** highest nonfatal overdose rates<\/a>. The county was among the communities that pharmaceutical companies flooded with millions of pain pills<\/a> in the 2000s. Addiction rates soared. Over time, people moved on to illicit drugs.<\/p>\n
Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith, first elected in 2018, campaigned to keep his job<\/a> in last year\u2019s election, in which he was unopposed, by saying he\u2019d \u201cconfronted the drug epidemic head on\u201d by \u201ctaking criminals off the streets and putting them in jail where they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also touted his drug arrests in a paid political announcement published in 2021 in the Daily Mountain Eagle, a newspaper in Jasper. He has deployed resources to boost the number of narcotics officers from two to five, and his staff has made about 2,500 drug arrests to date, Smith told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n
Smith also said that his office helps people with addiction. It gives people a list of treatment resources when they\u2019re released, he said, and has doubled medical supervision in the jail from eight to 16 hours a day.<\/p>\n
Drug possession and distribution, Smith said, are crimes he\u2019s tasked with enforcing. \u201cWe are going to do our job,\u201d he said. With so many people addicted to illegal drugs in Walker County, the power of the sheriff\u2019s office and threat of arrest loom large.<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith is interviewed by a reporter with ABC 33\/40, a Birmingham, Alabama-based television station, on a broadcast that aired in March. The family of a man who died in a holding cell while experiencing drug withdrawal in the county jail has filed a federal lawsuit against Smith, his deputies, and other jail employees.(Screengrab of ABC 33\/40 broadcast)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cPeople are scared to say \u2018I need help,\u2019\u201d said Kayse Brown, who added that she faced down her own addiction and then became a certified peer support specialist to help others.<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, a sheriff\u2019s deputy allegedly told Mitchell\u2019s cousin words to the effect of: \u201cWe\u2019re going to detox him and then we\u2019ll see how much of his brain is left.\u201d No one checked his vitals or gave him the medication he needed, the lawsuit said. Within days, Mitchell was without a mat or blanket and \u201chad to lie naked on the bare concrete floor,\u201d the suit said.<\/p>\n
When Mitchell arrived at Walker Baptist Medical Center two weeks after his arrest, his internal body temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit, the lawsuit said. That\u2019s more than 20 degrees below what is considered \u201c dangerously low<\/a>,\u201d according to the Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n
In response to the lawsuit<\/a>, Smith and other defendants said that Mitchell was a \u201cdrug addict\u201d who was \u201carrested in a psychotic and delusional state.\u201d Court records show they don\u2019t dispute what doctors reported about Mitchell\u2019s condition in the medical records. But they deny most of the lawsuit\u2019s other claims, including any liability for Mitchell\u2019s death. They asked that the lawsuit be halted while the FBI and the state of Alabama consider filing criminal charges in the case, according to court records. A judge denied the request<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n
After Mitchell\u2019s death, community activists called for Smith\u2019s resignation, circulating a petition that has more than 4,000 signatures. Ryan Cagle, a pastor who started the petition, said the sheriff\u2019s office doesn\u2019t see addiction as a chronic condition. Instead, Cagle said, its officials shame people who use drugs by posting their mug shots and arrest details on Facebook.<\/p>\n
$\"A$
The Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office and patrol car are shown on the department\u2019s website. A death in the county jail in January sparked a debate about the treatment by law enforcement of people with addiction and mental illness.(Screengrab of Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Department Website)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThe people who are elected, the people who have the power, they do not see people suffering under substance abuse as human or worthy of dignity,\u201d said Cagle, who runs a food pantry. Cagle\u2019s brother is married to Brown. His father dealt with addiction, and earlier this year he lost a 20-year-old cousin to an overdose.<\/p>\n
Smith wouldn\u2019t comment on the Mitchell case because of the pending lawsuit and said that Dunn\u2019s experiences happened before he took office. But, he said, \u201cthe burden of mental health is put on every sheriff in Alabama.\u201d The shortage of mental health treatment and lack of early intervention means people who need help land in jail instead. In one case, he said, a person with mental health disorders faced an 18-month waiting list for space to open at the secure medical facility in Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n
**Systemic Change Is Not Easy<\/strong><\/p>\n**
Walker County\u2019s challenges are indicative of those faced across the country. People with addictions often end up incarcerated, and Stephen Taylor, a Birmingham-based doctor and president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, points to a failure of the public health system to create a sustainable and robust addiction care infrastructure.<\/p>\n
**\u201cWe know what to do to treat addiction,\u201d Taylor said in written testimony to a** **Senate subcommittee<\/a> in May. But systemic change and disruption of the status quo is \u201cexceptionally difficult,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n**
Sources inside the system say that more than half of the people placed on the Alabama Department of Mental Health\u2019s waiting list for residential substance abuse treatment either die, drop off the list, or end up incarcerated, according to a 2020 report<\/a> from the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, an advocacy group that says the state\u2019s \u201c prison system is broken<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Walker County, at least 2,800 people with a substance use disorder are not receiving treatment and existing treatment is limited, according to a September 2019 assessment conducted through a federally funded planning grant that helps rural communities respond to opioid overdoses.<\/p>\n
Though treatment options are growing in the area, there are not enough to meet demand, some local recovery experts said. For example, the number of peer support specialists \u2014 those in recovery who are state-certified to help people before, during, and after treatment \u2014 increased to nine in 2022 from one in 2018, according to the Healing Network of Walker County, a group that organizes mental health and substance use-related resources in the county. A handful of providers offer medication-assisted treatment, including buprenorphine, which provides relief from severe symptoms of opioid withdrawal and, over time, reduces opioid cravings. A program now exists to help pregnant and parenting women experiencing addiction.<\/p>\n
The need for more treatment services is especially acute in Alabama, one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid, which has provided insurance coverage to people with substance use disorders in other states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe operate the whole addiction system in a crisis mode, as opposed to looking at it over the long term,\u201d said Regina LaBelle, director of the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at Georgetown University. Law enforcement officials with no health care training exercise almost total authority over the lives of inmates with addiction, and they are more likely to view substance abuse as a crime to be punished than a health crisis to be treated, say academic researchers, reform advocates, and formerly incarcerated people.<\/p>\n
**\u201cRight now, our system is still so focused on punishing people,\u201d said Leah Nelson, research director at Alabama Appleseed.<\/p>\n**
Dunn said she felt continually harassed by law enforcement officials because she was known to be a drug user. Because she once missed the jail\u2019s 4:30 a.m. breakfast call, she said, she was put in the same \u201cdrunk tank\u201d where Mitchell spent his final days.<\/p>\n
Smith said that he\u2019s exploring the idea of treating people with addiction in Walker County\u2019s jail with medications, but that the final decision rests with the county commission. Even though some people in county leadership disagree with the idea of treating people at the jail, \u201cwe\u2019re at the point where all options are on the table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is huge for Walker County,\u201d said Nicole Walden, an associate commissioner at the Alabama Department of Mental Health. She has had initial conversations with the Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office about the idea. \u201cThe stigma around substance use, in the South, it is a lot worse. Alabama is very much a law-and-order state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fewer than a fifth of U.S. jails<\/a>, and just 13% in the South, start people on medications to treat opioid use withdrawal, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report published in April. Only one Alabama jail currently offers medication-assisted treatment, Walden said.<\/p>\n
Dunn checked into residential treatment outside the county about six times. Each time she relapsed. Eventually, after missing court dates and once trying to escape from jail, Dunn ended up in prison for nearly two years, where, she said, \u201cdrugs were everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Kayse Brown is a certified peer support specialist in Jasper, Alabama. \u201cPeople are scared to say \u2018I need help,\u2019\u201d says Brown, who faced down her own addiction then decided to help others.(Renuka Rayasam \/ KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
**The Long Road to Recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n**
**Nationally,** **police arrested more than a million people<\/a> for drug possession in 2020. U.S. courts and police departments tasked with treating addiction have mixed results.<\/p>\n**
\u201cJails are not the most ideal place to treat them, but it\u2019s the reality of where they end up,\u201d said Andrew Klein, senior scientist for criminal justice at Advocates for Human Potential, a social services advocacy organization.<\/p>\n
The Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office runs a program to help people find treatment. But it\u2019s limited to those without an outstanding arrest warrant and with no more than two drug convictions, so few residents who are in need qualify. In its first two years, 20 people completed some sort of addiction treatment, according to the September 2019 assessment.<\/p>\n
Nikki Warren benefited from the county drug court program, which requires participants to take drug tests and pay thousands of dollars in fees. Warren joined the program at the recommendation of a judge. She was arrested in 2018 after she blacked out when she mistakenly took fentanyl instead of heroin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed that wake-up call,\u201d said Warren, who is now an outreach supervisor at Recovery Organization of Support Specialists. After completing the program, her charges were dismissed, she said.<\/p>\n
Dunn said the drug court program was \u201ctoo hard.\u201d But she was released from prison 3\u00bd years ago determined to change her life. She recalled thinking to herself, \u201cDang, girl, all them years that I wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spends time reading the Bible and singing, she said, but has struggled to find stable footing. She has lost several friends to overdoses, she said. Dunn said she would like to see a counselor but is uninsured. She relapsed for about a week this year, she said. She wants to work, perhaps at the front desk of a factory, but she goes to job interviews with a felony record and no high school diploma.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere I am \u2014 I quit school, my baby is dead,\u201d Dunn said. She feels she is still being punished by the system. \u201cI\u2019m not perfect,\u201d she said. But \u201cthey don\u2019t give us a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Jasper is the county seat of Walker County, Alabama.(Renuka Rayasam \/ KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
*Kara Nelson of KFF Health News contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n*
\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRenuka Rayasam: <\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t rrayasam@kff.org<\/a>,\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@renurayasam<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n
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Anthony Mitchell, who would later die in the custody of the Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office, is shown in a photo provided by his family.(Margaret Mitchell)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In January, Anthony Mitchell, 33, allegedly froze to death after spending 14 days in the tank, according to a federal lawsuit<\/a> his family filed in February against Sheriff Nick Smith, his deputies, and other jail employees.<\/p>\n
Mitchell had \u201cspiraled into worsening drug addiction,\u201d the lawsuit said, and his cousin called 911 to send an ambulance to his home because Mitchell \u201cappeared to be having a mental breakdown.\u201d Instead, sheriff\u2019s deputies arrived and then a SWAT team, the lawsuit said. On Facebook, the sheriff\u2019s office posted that \u201cMitchell brandished a handgun\u201d and, from the scene, a deputy published a photo of his arrest, the suit said.<\/p>\n
In jail, Mitchell was \u201cdenied access to medical treatment,\u201d the suit said, citing video footage from the jail, and he died in custody. His death has sparked a debate in Walker County about the treatment by law enforcement of people with addiction and mental illness.<\/p>\n
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\n\t<\/h4>\n
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**Crime and Punishment: \u2018People Are Scared to Say \u201cI Need Help\u201d\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n**
**Walker County, nestled in northwestern Alabama\u2019s Appalachian foothills and dotted with coal mines, has one of the nation\u2019s** highest nonfatal overdose rates<\/a>. The county was among the communities that pharmaceutical companies flooded with millions of pain pills<\/a> in the 2000s. Addiction rates soared. Over time, people moved on to illicit drugs.<\/p>\n
Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith, first elected in 2018, campaigned to keep his job<\/a> in last year\u2019s election, in which he was unopposed, by saying he\u2019d \u201cconfronted the drug epidemic head on\u201d by \u201ctaking criminals off the streets and putting them in jail where they belong.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also touted his drug arrests in a paid political announcement published in 2021 in the Daily Mountain Eagle, a newspaper in Jasper. He has deployed resources to boost the number of narcotics officers from two to five, and his staff has made about 2,500 drug arrests to date, Smith told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n
Smith also said that his office helps people with addiction. It gives people a list of treatment resources when they\u2019re released, he said, and has doubled medical supervision in the jail from eight to 16 hours a day.<\/p>\n
Drug possession and distribution, Smith said, are crimes he\u2019s tasked with enforcing. \u201cWe are going to do our job,\u201d he said. With so many people addicted to illegal drugs in Walker County, the power of the sheriff\u2019s office and threat of arrest loom large.<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith is interviewed by a reporter with ABC 33\/40, a Birmingham, Alabama-based television station, on a broadcast that aired in March. The family of a man who died in a holding cell while experiencing drug withdrawal in the county jail has filed a federal lawsuit against Smith, his deputies, and other jail employees.(Screengrab of ABC 33\/40 broadcast)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cPeople are scared to say \u2018I need help,\u2019\u201d said Kayse Brown, who added that she faced down her own addiction and then became a certified peer support specialist to help others.<\/p>\n
According to the lawsuit, a sheriff\u2019s deputy allegedly told Mitchell\u2019s cousin words to the effect of: \u201cWe\u2019re going to detox him and then we\u2019ll see how much of his brain is left.\u201d No one checked his vitals or gave him the medication he needed, the lawsuit said. Within days, Mitchell was without a mat or blanket and \u201chad to lie naked on the bare concrete floor,\u201d the suit said.<\/p>\n
When Mitchell arrived at Walker Baptist Medical Center two weeks after his arrest, his internal body temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit, the lawsuit said. That\u2019s more than 20 degrees below what is considered \u201c dangerously low<\/a>,\u201d according to the Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n
In response to the lawsuit<\/a>, Smith and other defendants said that Mitchell was a \u201cdrug addict\u201d who was \u201carrested in a psychotic and delusional state.\u201d Court records show they don\u2019t dispute what doctors reported about Mitchell\u2019s condition in the medical records. But they deny most of the lawsuit\u2019s other claims, including any liability for Mitchell\u2019s death. They asked that the lawsuit be halted while the FBI and the state of Alabama consider filing criminal charges in the case, according to court records. A judge denied the request<\/a> in June.<\/p>\n
After Mitchell\u2019s death, community activists called for Smith\u2019s resignation, circulating a petition that has more than 4,000 signatures. Ryan Cagle, a pastor who started the petition, said the sheriff\u2019s office doesn\u2019t see addiction as a chronic condition. Instead, Cagle said, its officials shame people who use drugs by posting their mug shots and arrest details on Facebook.<\/p>\n
$\"A$
The Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office and patrol car are shown on the department\u2019s website. A death in the county jail in January sparked a debate about the treatment by law enforcement of people with addiction and mental illness.(Screengrab of Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Department Website)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cThe people who are elected, the people who have the power, they do not see people suffering under substance abuse as human or worthy of dignity,\u201d said Cagle, who runs a food pantry. Cagle\u2019s brother is married to Brown. His father dealt with addiction, and earlier this year he lost a 20-year-old cousin to an overdose.<\/p>\n
Smith wouldn\u2019t comment on the Mitchell case because of the pending lawsuit and said that Dunn\u2019s experiences happened before he took office. But, he said, \u201cthe burden of mental health is put on every sheriff in Alabama.\u201d The shortage of mental health treatment and lack of early intervention means people who need help land in jail instead. In one case, he said, a person with mental health disorders faced an 18-month waiting list for space to open at the secure medical facility in Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n
**Systemic Change Is Not Easy<\/strong><\/p>\n**
Walker County\u2019s challenges are indicative of those faced across the country. People with addictions often end up incarcerated, and Stephen Taylor, a Birmingham-based doctor and president-elect of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, points to a failure of the public health system to create a sustainable and robust addiction care infrastructure.<\/p>\n
**\u201cWe know what to do to treat addiction,\u201d Taylor said in written testimony to a** **Senate subcommittee<\/a> in May. But systemic change and disruption of the status quo is \u201cexceptionally difficult,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n**
Sources inside the system say that more than half of the people placed on the Alabama Department of Mental Health\u2019s waiting list for residential substance abuse treatment either die, drop off the list, or end up incarcerated, according to a 2020 report<\/a> from the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, an advocacy group that says the state\u2019s \u201c prison system is broken<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Walker County, at least 2,800 people with a substance use disorder are not receiving treatment and existing treatment is limited, according to a September 2019 assessment conducted through a federally funded planning grant that helps rural communities respond to opioid overdoses.<\/p>\n
Though treatment options are growing in the area, there are not enough to meet demand, some local recovery experts said. For example, the number of peer support specialists \u2014 those in recovery who are state-certified to help people before, during, and after treatment \u2014 increased to nine in 2022 from one in 2018, according to the Healing Network of Walker County, a group that organizes mental health and substance use-related resources in the county. A handful of providers offer medication-assisted treatment, including buprenorphine, which provides relief from severe symptoms of opioid withdrawal and, over time, reduces opioid cravings. A program now exists to help pregnant and parenting women experiencing addiction.<\/p>\n
The need for more treatment services is especially acute in Alabama, one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid, which has provided insurance coverage to people with substance use disorders in other states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe operate the whole addiction system in a crisis mode, as opposed to looking at it over the long term,\u201d said Regina LaBelle, director of the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at Georgetown University. Law enforcement officials with no health care training exercise almost total authority over the lives of inmates with addiction, and they are more likely to view substance abuse as a crime to be punished than a health crisis to be treated, say academic researchers, reform advocates, and formerly incarcerated people.<\/p>\n
**\u201cRight now, our system is still so focused on punishing people,\u201d said Leah Nelson, research director at Alabama Appleseed.<\/p>\n**
Dunn said she felt continually harassed by law enforcement officials because she was known to be a drug user. Because she once missed the jail\u2019s 4:30 a.m. breakfast call, she said, she was put in the same \u201cdrunk tank\u201d where Mitchell spent his final days.<\/p>\n
Smith said that he\u2019s exploring the idea of treating people with addiction in Walker County\u2019s jail with medications, but that the final decision rests with the county commission. Even though some people in county leadership disagree with the idea of treating people at the jail, \u201cwe\u2019re at the point where all options are on the table,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is huge for Walker County,\u201d said Nicole Walden, an associate commissioner at the Alabama Department of Mental Health. She has had initial conversations with the Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office about the idea. \u201cThe stigma around substance use, in the South, it is a lot worse. Alabama is very much a law-and-order state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fewer than a fifth of U.S. jails<\/a>, and just 13% in the South, start people on medications to treat opioid use withdrawal, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report published in April. Only one Alabama jail currently offers medication-assisted treatment, Walden said.<\/p>\n
Dunn checked into residential treatment outside the county about six times. Each time she relapsed. Eventually, after missing court dates and once trying to escape from jail, Dunn ended up in prison for nearly two years, where, she said, \u201cdrugs were everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Kayse Brown is a certified peer support specialist in Jasper, Alabama. \u201cPeople are scared to say \u2018I need help,\u2019\u201d says Brown, who faced down her own addiction then decided to help others.(Renuka Rayasam \/ KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
**The Long Road to Recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n**
**Nationally,** **police arrested more than a million people<\/a> for drug possession in 2020. U.S. courts and police departments tasked with treating addiction have mixed results.<\/p>\n**
\u201cJails are not the most ideal place to treat them, but it\u2019s the reality of where they end up,\u201d said Andrew Klein, senior scientist for criminal justice at Advocates for Human Potential, a social services advocacy organization.<\/p>\n
The Walker County Sheriff\u2019s Office runs a program to help people find treatment. But it\u2019s limited to those without an outstanding arrest warrant and with no more than two drug convictions, so few residents who are in need qualify. In its first two years, 20 people completed some sort of addiction treatment, according to the September 2019 assessment.<\/p>\n
Nikki Warren benefited from the county drug court program, which requires participants to take drug tests and pay thousands of dollars in fees. Warren joined the program at the recommendation of a judge. She was arrested in 2018 after she blacked out when she mistakenly took fentanyl instead of heroin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed that wake-up call,\u201d said Warren, who is now an outreach supervisor at Recovery Organization of Support Specialists. After completing the program, her charges were dismissed, she said.<\/p>\n
Dunn said the drug court program was \u201ctoo hard.\u201d But she was released from prison 3\u00bd years ago determined to change her life. She recalled thinking to herself, \u201cDang, girl, all them years that I wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spends time reading the Bible and singing, she said, but has struggled to find stable footing. She has lost several friends to overdoses, she said. Dunn said she would like to see a counselor but is uninsured. She relapsed for about a week this year, she said. She wants to work, perhaps at the front desk of a factory, but she goes to job interviews with a felony record and no high school diploma.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere I am \u2014 I quit school, my baby is dead,\u201d Dunn said. She feels she is still being punished by the system. \u201cI\u2019m not perfect,\u201d she said. But \u201cthey don\u2019t give us a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
$\"A$
Jasper is the county seat of Walker County, Alabama.(Renuka Rayasam \/ KFF Health News)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
*Kara Nelson of KFF Health News contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n*
\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRenuka Rayasam: <\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t rrayasam@kff.org<\/a>,\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t@renurayasam<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n
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