Zachary's Story Stop incarcerating people for drug addiction

Zachary is my son. He is 24 years old and has been in and out of jail/prison since the age of 16.

Out of my four children, I could see early on that Zachary was different. Mental illness was not made aware in those days,. Bipolar? What is that?

Bipolar is a serious mental illness that if not treated can lead to a path of destruction.

That was the exact reason for my son's long dark road in the system.

I first reached out to the police by calling them during one of Zachary's manic episodes. I had no idea the mistake I was making.

That call only started the road to punishment and not to help or treatment.

By the time Zachary was already in the system XXX as a juvenile delinquent he had long before started his use of drugs.

Zachary smoked marijuana at the age of 14 for the first time. It only took six short months for him to progresse to heroin.

His first overdose was at the age of 16. I will never forget opening the door that morning to a sheriff asking if I was the mother of Zachary Mitchell. Upon my reply of yes he told me my son was in full cardiac arrest and being taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Zachary has overdosed at least 12 times since then. His last overdose being the worst. He was home alone when he fell out. Not being sure of how long he had not been breathing my daughter came home first to find him on the bathroom floor with the needle still in his arm. She started CPR. He had no heart beat. My husband came home approximately 5 minutes after she started CPR. He immediately ran to get the Narcan. My daughter was on the phone with 911 as my husband administer the Narcan. It was not working. He then took over the CPR until the paramedics arrived.

I'm thankful to say my son is still alive. However this overdose was a violation of his probation and parole. He was taken in handcuffs back to prison. This I believe is his third or fourth vop all being for the same reason, a drug overdose.

We have to take this into our own hands when a person has not committed a violent crime and is a drug addict with or without mental illness (however they usually do go hand-in-hand). When they're only charge or vop is drugs or an overdose. They should be put in treatment not prison. They need Rehabilitation not punishment so they can recover to be healthy mentally , emotionally and physically.

Incarcerating them is only prolonging their criminal career. If we band together and make our government put these people in treatment we can rehabilitate our drug addicts and mentally ill people to help them to live healthy and productive lives.

Please sign this petition so we can make treatment mandatory and not treated as a violation so people can recover the proper help that they need.. This world of ours can be a better, stronger ,healthier place for all of us and our upcoming children. We have to do this. Please help us make this change.