Last Wednesday at the Rose Scholars’ Cafe, we discussed with Judge Scott Miller his experiences of being a judge in the area and working for the judicial system overall. In a calm and collected manner, Judge Miller spoke about a variety of dilemmas he had to face, from external issues related to crime to internal issues related to ethics.

What surprised me during the talk was the apparent amount of drug users and abusers found in the area who have been caught and tried. I suppose in our relatively safe little bubble that is Cornell’s campus we rarely have the need to ever be made aware of these problems. Judge Miller, who worked as a defense attorney for many drug users such as heroin addicts prior to becoming a judge, recounted tales of abuse and overdose due to both heroin and the synthesized and more deadly fentanyl, which is often sold under the guise of heroin. The danger of buying heroin off of the street is that it may be laced with or replaced by fentanyl, which is 10x more deadly (3 mg can kill a grown man compared to the 30 mg of lethal heroin) and primarily used as anesthetic, that is, under the careful supervision of a trained anesthesiologist. When used on the streets, fentanyl can be fatal.

A possible solution to this, brought up by Judge Miller, is safe injection sites, where addicts would be able to go to shoot up under the close supervision of a nurse. Addiction cannot be cured overnight, and the safe injection sites would serve as an intermediate between dependent addiction and full recovery. Additionally, in the case of an overdose, this supervision could mean the difference between life and death. While a viable solution, these sites cannot be supported by the law and thus cannot be supported by Judge Miller because heroin use is and will remain illegal.

As a drastically uninformed student, I was saddened to hear about such prevalent problems occurring just outside of Cornell. Hopefully we as students in the future can fight issues such as these and change our communities for the better, alongside people like Judge Miller.