by Nicholas Ganz

I have a long standing pen pal relationship with a woman who is currently incarcerated in a federal prison for a drug offense. Her name is Eileen and her story is a familiar one. I won’t violate her privacy by sharing her life story here; that is for her to tell when she is ready.

Angela Davis has written that “imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.” I think that nowhere is this more apparent than in how we deal with drug users in this country. If you have never personally experienced the ravages of addiction either personally or among your friends and/or family members, then it is difficult to adequately convey the pain and suffering that is often associated with the disease. Elizabeth Cardona who is a prisoner has written a few powerful poems about her own addiction. Here is one called “Junkie” which appears in the zine “Bound Struggles #6:”

Hopeless, Godless, hollow-eyed, gaunt.
Under cold violent moons and suns that always seemed too bright.
I was rabid — foaming for my next shot,
chasing dragons in search of the land of Nod.
The place where angels sleep.
Running, racing against myself, and time and everything else.
Telling myself that today I’m fixed but
tomorrow I’ll quit — everyday.
And suddenly months turn to years
but tomorrow never comes.

Criminalizing addiction has been and is a failure. Treatment is the only viable solution. Here again Elizabeth Cardona writes eloquently about her incarceration experience as an addict in her poem titled “Prisoner:”

I awake in the prison, this place is a purgatory between
never never land and the REAL world.
My cell is cold and I’m scared!
I’m the junkie with the dripping nose and the runs.
I feel like I’m going to die – I want to die.
Just close my eyes and never open them again.
I find myself amongst freaks, hustlers, dealers, murderers, and thieves,
but just the ones who were caught.
The cops are proud – they got another drug-dealing shoplifter
off the streets.
My nights are hungry and all echoes, and the sound of keys.
The click, click, click of cuffs.
Tomorrow has arrived with pain and so much more to come.
But it is here that I have found myself.
I’ve found Truth, Kindness, Compassion.
In these walls I was never alone, but always lonely.
Junkie, now Prisoner.
I’m also a mother, daughter, and a woman.
But don’t get me wrong. King Heroin is waiting patiently for me at the front gate.
But God has me by the hand and if I slip and fall, he’ll carry me.
I know that now.
He’ll do the same for you if only you trust and believe.

Does it sound to any of you from this poem that Elizabeth is getting the help that she needs in prison to deal with her addiction? You don’t have to answer that question. I think that we all know the answer…