Addictions hurt society and children

There's an aura of bravado about Boyd Clark.

The "bad to the bone" T-shirt a size too small for his brawn. A Harley-Davidson cap pulled just right to shadow the eyes. Impatience imparting a "don't mess with me" attitude.

But the jaded veneer crumbles when you ask him about the kids.

"It tears your heart out," he said barely above a whisper, raking a Rasputin beard with his fingers. "There have been so many. Those kids don't stand a chance."

Clark, a narcotics sergeant with the Salt Lake Police Department, has seen every kind of drug and every kind of addiction. He has seen parents when given a choice between getting treatment or losing their children to state custody choose the drugs.

He has seen the filth and squalor of addiction. He has seen the malnutrition. He has seen the violence and crime.

But it all comes back to the kids. Kids who have no chance to escape the cycle themselves.

"The best thing that can happen is for mom and dad to go away, and the kids have a fresh start in a foster home," he said.

He catches himself, realizing it may not be politically correct to advocate taking children away from their parents. So he adds a belated caveat: "If the parents won't rehabilitate."

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Those on the front lines of the war on drugs readily admit it is a war without winners.

Police officers find themselves arresting the same people again and again. Courts are overloaded with drug offenses, prisons with drug offenders. Drugs are more readily available today — and cheaper — than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

Cops on the street have no illusions they are having much of an impact on the drug problem. And most are frustrated by the vicious cycle of crime and violence fueled by addiction.

And feeding the addiction has resulted in a web of interrelated crimes. Burglaries, robberies, thefts of all kinds can be traced back to addiction's doorstep.

In Ogden, narcotics officers now work closely with property crimes detectives. The simple reasoning: Criminals dealing in drugs are the same ones stealing to feed a habit.

Detectives joke they can usually tell when a new shipment of potent drugs hits town because the crime rate rises sharply as addicts scramble to get their piece.