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Globe Staff
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging the county jail's policy of denying prisoners access to drugs that treat addiction.
The lawsuit asks the US District Court to demand that the Essex County Correctional Home in Middleton provide methadone to an Ipswich man who has been relying on this drug for almost two years.
Although centered on a man and an installation, the suit is the latest salvo in an effort – in Massachusetts and elsewhere – to change policies and attitudes toward addiction in the correctional system. The ACLU has filed similar lawsuits in the state of Maine and Washington.
Like most prisons and prisons in Massachusetts, the Essex County Correctional Facility does not provide methadone or buprenorphine to inmates, even though the inmate is already on medical prescription. These drugs, which reduce cravings and prevent overdoses, are standard treatments for opioid dependence.
"For someone with a critical illness, treatment is not optional – it's essential," Carol Rose, Executive Director of the Massachusetts ACLU, said in a statement. "Public officials should support the efforts of people to overcome opioid addiction and not hinder them."
The complainant, Geoffrey Pesce, was arrested in July for driving with a suspended or revoked license and faces a mandatory 60-day minimum sentence.
Deprived of methadone, Pesce will experience withdrawal pains and will be at a high risk of relapse into opioid use and a possible overdose, according to the complaint. The state data show that people recently released from prison are 120 times more likely to die from an overdose than the general population.
The ACLU's federal lawsuit with its pro bono partner, Goodwin Procter LLP, alleges that the refusal of anti-drug drugs violates both the Eighth Amendment's protection from cruel and unusual punishment and the US law on disability with a disorder related to the use of substances. The complaint states that drug addiction is a chronic disease and that prisons and jails routinely provide medications prescribed for other chronic conditions.
The lawsuit is called Defendants: Essex County Sheriff, Kevin F. Coppinger, and House of Corrections Superintendent, Aaron Eastman.
Coppinger said through a spokesperson that his legal staff was reviewing the complaint, but that he was not commenting on ongoing litigation.
Matthew Segal, legal director of the Massachusetts ACLU, said that officials and health professionals are in agreement that the opioid crisis requires a public health approach. But, he said, "the situation on the ground is that punishment remains the norm."
The continuation of the ACLU follows a failure by the Legislature to require all prisons and jails to supply buprenorphine or methadone to opioid-addicted prisoners. Instead, lawmakers have put in place a three-year pilot program in six county-run correctional houses, which will begin supplying drugs in September 2019. Essex County is not one of six pilot sites.
Leo Beletsky, professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University, said the pilot program "is helping the situation and is not acceptable when many people die." "Why create a pilot program when we have to launch it? It is extremely frustrating to see people die unnecessarily when we know we can help them. "
While it may be expensive to provide drugs to every detainee who could benefit, "there is fairly conclusive evidence that providing drugs to people is a very economical measure. You reduce recidivism and readmission.
According to the complaint, Pesce is a 32-year-old machinist who lives with his parents and young son in Ipswich. After years of trying to overcome his addiction, Pesce finally found a treatment that worked for him at the Lahey Health Behavioral Services Clinic in Danvers, where he received daily doses of methadone with counseling and other therapies . He has not used illegal drugs since 2016, the complaint says.
He lost his driver's license because of what the complaint calls a "drug conviction resulting from a charge prior to his recovery". He is counting on his parents to take him to the clinic.
But on July 19, his mother was not available and, rather than risk a relapse, he went to the clinic. He was arrested for driving six miles above the speed limit and charged with speeding and driving with a license revoked or suspended, according to the complaint.
At his hearing date Monday, Pesce intends to plead guilty and hopes to begin his sentence immediately.
But Segal said the ACLU was hoping for a temporary injunction before Pesce was incarcerated. Such an order, if granted, would require that the prison provide methadone to Pesce behind bars, or drive him to his current methadone clinic, located five minutes away, every morning.
Felice J. Freyer can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @felicejfreyer.
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