6 Thursday, February 23, 2017
Coastal View News • Carpinteria, California
Drugs in Carpinteria: A slow-motion disaster BY CHRISTIAN BEAMISH
At left, although Sheriff’s deputies found a relatively small amount of drugs during a warrant search of a home on Elm Avenue in Carpinteria last December (2.5 ounces of black tar heroin and some methamphetamine and cocaine) they seized numerous weapons.
Two substances—crystal methamphetamine and heroin—drive ongoing and mostly hidden tragedies for people who use those drugs in Carpinteria. Each week in the “Police Beat” section of Coastal View News the compiled Sheriff ’s Office reports invariably include three-to-five drug arrests, and while the bizarre circumstances that addicts and users finds themselves in may make for amusing reading, the real-life consequences of these drugs have repercussions throughout the community. Speaking with Lieutenant Mike Perkins, Carpinteria’s Chief of Police Services for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, as well as Jim Rampton of the CarpinteriaSummerland Fire Protection District and three Carpinterians directly affected by crystal meth and/or heroin, provided some insight on what many across the United States describe as a public health crisis. But the collective experience of law enforcement, emergency personnel and regular citizens only points to a shadowy world of drug dealers and users that seems to have no end.
enforcement isn’t the only answer.” Conceding the point that there will likely never be a “knock-out punch” from law enforcement in regards to the drugs moving through the country, Perkins said, “the real issue is dealing with the addiction process, and that dovetails with societal issues.” The Sheriff’s job, in other words, is to enforce the laws of the land. But many of the issues surrounding illegal drug use go beyond violations of the penal code.
They used to cook it here
Youth involvement
Santa Barbara County, with its large tracts of backcountry and secluded land, used to be a “source location” for crystal methamphetamine, Lieutenant Perkins said. But changes to the regulations that control access to the key ingredients, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, and the lab equipment needed to manufacture meth “has made it easier to import from south of the border,” Perkins added. Meth and heroin, “works its way through the Mexican Mafia and street gangs,” he said, “but that’s not to say that all drugs come from Mexican gangs.” Drugs of all kinds are “pervasive” in the United States, Perkins pointed out, but there are socio-economic aspects to the problem that “get into bigger questions of society.” As for drugs coming into Carpinteria, Perkins said that the town’s location between points north and south in the state make it a convenient stop for dealers. “Like so many societal problems,” Perkins went on to say, “law
Below, in 2016 detectives from Santa Barbara found 5.3 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and 1.3 pounds of cocaine at the Ventura residence of a man arrested in Carpinteria on suspicion of trafficking.
Two former Carpinteria High School students recently agreed to speak about their struggles with drugs in this idyllic beach town, and their stories are as recognizable as they are commonly tragic. In his mid-20s, A (to preserve anonymity) said that he cannot point to any major traumas in his childhood or family life that would account for the life-threatening hospitalizations he endured in the worst of his addiction to heroin and cocaine. “I was into surfing, music and sports when I was a kid,” he said. “In high school I didn’t drink or do any drugs because I saw the craziness of it, and I wanted to keep myself clean.” But at some point a few years ago, A recalls going to a friend’s house and seeing two piles of powder: one white and one blue. The white pile was cocaine, the blue, Oxycontin—the synthetic prescription pain reliever that 2 million Americans were addicted to in 2015, according to
a report from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. As is also well documented, prescription painkillers are the most common way for people to become addicted to heroin, and the numbers of heroin addicts have quadrupled in the U.S. since 1999, which parallels the widespread sale of Oxycontin and other synthetic opioids in the same period of time. Cocaine was a thrill for A, a buzzing high that makes one want to party and have fun. “Oxy” on the other hand, was a different thing entirely—a full-body sensation that makes any unfulfilled void in one’s life insignificant, a transcendent experience of warmth and a tingling, dream-like state. Those two piles, the white and blue, were regularly available at A’s buddy’s house for about two
A mother’s advice
Carpinteria High School graduate Kent Weinberg was one-day shy of his 32nd birthday last October when he died from acute toxicity from both meth and heroin. His mother Bonnie Weinberg offers the following advice to the families or loved ones of those suffering from addiction. 1. Try to persuade your addict to agree to enter a residential recovery program, followed by residency in a sober living facility. Most addicts cannot recover alone, regardless of how badly they want to. If you can just get him or her in the door, at least the addict can learn about the program and decide. We have some excellent recovery programs locally—Santa Barbara Rescue Mission’s Men’s or Women’s Residential Treatment Program, and Cottage Residential Program (affiliated with Cottage Health/Hospital). The longer the program, the better the chance for recovery. If there is the option of entering a mandatory residential program in lieu of jail time, urge the addict to take the option. 2. Most importantly, start attending a 12-step program for families of addicts
or alcoholics, such as Al Anon, Families Anonymous or Nar-Anon. It is critical that you to take care of yourself. You don’t want to become collateral damage in the addiction battle. One analogy these programs use is that of the oxygen mask on an airplane—put yours on first so you can help others who need help. 3. Learn all you can about addiction so you know the enemy you are dealing with. There are some great books and TV documentaries out there to help you understand addiction and what will and won’t work with an addict. 4. Ask for help. If you are able, get some counseling or therapy. You don’t have to do this alone.”
years. “Then things got out-of-hand one night,” he explained, and the friend was soon evicted. With the drugs he’d become accustomed to now unavailable, A turned to other sources for that incomparable sensation of opiated serenity. “We would go up to Santa Barbara or down to Ventura to score,” he said, also noting that a 1-gramper-day heroin habit costs between $80 and $100 per day to maintain. Although he never had any trouble with the police (“Somehow,” he said with a palpable sense of relief) A twice went into seizures and was hospitalized after injecting heroin and cocaine simultaneously. “I realized that I couldn’t keep going like that” he said, and credits participation in a 12-step program with his current sobriety. A also shared the horrible realization he’d had in 2015 when Kristopher Kump, a Carpinterian accused of dealing crystal methamphetamine, made local headlines after he ended a day-long standoff with deputies by setting fire to the trailer he lived in on Ocean View Avenue near Toro Canyon Road in Carpinteria, then killed himself with a gunshot to the head. “I was at that guy’s trailer a few days before that,” A said, “and I was thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’”
“They told me it was coke…”
Another young Carpinteria man, B, is still a teen and his struggle seems born out of difficulties at home, and, as he put it, “Trying to live a Scarface ideal.” His youthful demeanor belies the nine different times he has been incarcerated in the Santa Barbara juvenile system. “I had no dad around growing up,” B said, “and I just started getting into more and more stuff,” alluding to stealing and other trouble. Smoking marijuana and drinking “is normal” for a lot of high school students
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