Attorney general focused on drug crimes

Three-point action plan laid out

Posted

BROOKINGS – Guest of honor South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, the state’s senior law enforcement officer, used the annual Brookings Optimist Respect for Law breakfast as a platform to address a major crime challenge facing every community in the state – drugs and methamphetamine.

He noted that South Dakota is “a wonderful state where it’s safe,” and crime is down in many areas: murder, sex abuse and forcible rape.

“But there’s one area that is haunting us, and that’s controlled substances,” Jackley said. Statewide their use is up 12.5 percent.

The attorney general said that upswing leads to “violence, burglaries, other bad things. And we have the opportunity and we must do something about it.” He added that the problem is nationwide. America’s states’ attorneys general will be meeting in June to address the issue.

As a course of action, Jackley proposes a three-point plan that includes: prevention, specialty courts and enforcement.

“We’ve got to do a better job at prevention, getting into our schools at a younger age. There’s the ‘No Meth Ever,’ which is a law enforcement program. We’ve been in our colleges,” he said, noting the first point.

He encouraged his audience, most of whom were in law enforcement professions, to get behind him getting the word out: “Spread the message.”

For his second point, Jackley explained the role of specialty courts, such as drug courts, “which are not for the folks who distribute the drugs or manufacture them. Those courts are for those people we want saved, (such as) the single mother who has a chance. We see more opportunities for treatment through specialty courts.”

Finally, he turned to “the enforcement arm,” telling his audience “that’s what many of you are all about. It’s the concept that if you deal drugs, if you manufacture drugs the best place for you is jail.”

The attorney general noted that there had been some “philosophy disagreement with the Department of Justice on that topic.” But more people are coming around “to understand that the bad folks who make drugs and distribute drugs have got to be stopped.”

He said the state Legislature has taken a step in that direction with the formation of a task force to work on that issue. He called that a start.

‘Black market’ drugs

Jackley said he had met with United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions, calling it a good conversation.

“What we really talked about was that all the drugs that we’re seeing across the United States and here in South Dakota are coming from Mexico. And it’s time the federal government did something about it.”

Jackley said back in 2014, when he served as chairman of the Conference of Western Attorneys General, he and “a group of other states’ attorneys general saw a need to do something on the border and didn’t have a partner in the federal government. We signed a memorandum of understanding with a foreign government. We did it, and we needed it.”

Now Jackley thinks Sessions is “going along that path. Hopefully, we’re going to continue along that path.”

In a question-and-answer session that followed his prepared remarks, the attorney general did note that South Dakota has a program that allows monitoring of opiates and other prescription drugs by pharmacists and physicians; and the state doesn’t have the opiate problems that some other states have.

However, he did admit that there is a “black market” for drugs coming into South Dakota from other states, such as the opiate painkiller Fentanyl, that can cost from $15 to $30 for a single tablet.    

Earlier in his opening remarks, Jackley praised the law enforcement officers he gets to work with, “the men and women in uniform that go out every day. They work hard. They sacrifice. Their spouses and friends sacrifice.”

As the program concluded, the attorney general presented the 2017 “Law Enforcement Award” to Brookings Police Lt. Derrick Powers “for distinguished and dedicated service advancing the respect for law.”

Powers, a 22-year veteran of the Brookings Police Department, heads up the Investigations Division.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.