THE CRIMINALIZATION OF ADDICTION

<p>The story of G. Scott Hancock is about my son who was raised in an upper-middle-income dual-career family and earned a bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Missouri. When 16 and 17 years old Scott was prescribed OxyContin for painful kidney stones which began a long journey of opioid dependence that ended in fentanyl. At 29 Scott shared fentanyl with a co-addict/friend who subsequently died from an overdose. Four months later the DEA arrested him under the 1986 drug-induced homicide laws and he is now serving 20 years in federal prison.</p>