V22, N39
ursday, June 15, 2017

HPI Interview: Hill and policy crises

Attorney general talks of drug epidemics, cyber and terror threats

By BRIAN A. HOWEY

INDIANAPOLIS – Last week
Howey Politics Indiana reported that new Attorney General Curtis Hill has been approached about a U.S. Senate run in 2018.
In this
HPI Interview, we talked with Hill at the Statehouse

about his first five months after spending nearly three

decades working in the Elkhart County

prosecutor’s office, the last 14 in that

elected position. He entered the at-
For instance, the Washington Post reported that

the opioid epidemic that has “ravaged life expectancy among economically stressed white Americans is taking a

torney general office this year with some seismic issues

ranging from an opioid and methamphetamine epidemic, to cyber security issues that are hitting Hoosier businesses and consumers in the wallet.

Continued on page 3

Mayor Pete heads to Iowa

By CHRIS SAUTTER

WASHINGTON – It is said that no politician travels to Iowa to give a speech unless they plan to run for president. So the announcement this week that South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to be a headline speaker at a Des Moines political event

“We may have our differences but we do well in times like these that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because above all they love our country. ”

- President Trump, reacting to the shooting of House GOP

in September begs the question: What is Pete up to? He will be speaking along with Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who is by all accounts mulling a presidential run.
Undoubtedly, Buttigieg is a rising star in the Democratic Party. He earned rave reviews for his recent dark horse campaign for Democratic National Committee Chair. Though he didn’t win

Whip Steve Scalise

sufficient commitments from the

Page 2

delegates to seriously compete for the post, his message of reforming the party by going outside-the-Beltway resonated. Nearly all of the former DNC Chairs, including Howard Dean and Ed Rendell, endorsed him. He clearly elevated his national stature, one that was already climbing.

The Democratic Party

is in desperate need of the kind of change that Buttigieg advocates and offers. The party’s 2016 presidential candidate lost to possibly the least prepared candidate in American history. Republicans control both Houses of Congress and two-thirds of the

governor’s offices. Republicans have

veto proof majority’s in nearly half of the state legislatures in the county. As Bernie Sanders points out in an opinion editorial this week in The New York Times, “If would seem that Buttigieg is using his Iowa trip and other recent national speaking engagements (last month he gave the commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fils Institute of Government) as a platform to continue the conversation he started during his DNC campaign.
David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency, commented to me by e-mail: “Pete’s one of the great talents in the Democratic Party. He has a compelling personal story and has written an impressive record of achievement in

public office. That said, I don’t think

he is speaking nationally in preparation for a race so much as to try and provide thoughts, as a progressive mayor in the Heartland, about where Democrats should be going.”

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these results are not a clear manifestation of a failed political strategy, I don’t know what is.”

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A Buttigieg presidential campaign would undoubtedly point the party in the right direction, just as his DNC race did. It would be

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a magnate for young activists and organized at the grass roots. And, his focus on winning back working class white voters would help him with a critical and too often ignored segment of the party. But, his youth and inexperience in national affairs would likely undermine prospects for any realistic success in a presidential campaign. In the end, it is hard to see how a Buttigieg presidential
Would that be enough to put

Buttigieg in the position of influence

that he seems to be seeking? It’s not clear that it would. Nor is it clear whether Buttigieg is in a position to move up politically in his home state. He is apparently taking himself out as a candidate for Congress in Indiana’s 2nd District, though that is a race he would stand a good chance of win-

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campaign would be any more success- ning. Incumbent Republican Jackie ful than his DNC effort.

During his run for DNC

Chair, Buttigieg talked about the importance of building the Democratic Party from the ground up and to start winning back statehouses instead of treating the presidential campaign as the only one that matters. By that, it
Walorski’s record of accomplishment is thin and 2018 looks to be a good year for Democrats. He has said Congress doesn’t interest him because of the partisan culture and gridlock.
Some have suggested that a run for governor of Indiana is a more logical move. But in 2020 Buttigieg

Page 3

could face the popular Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett in

a difficult primary. Even if he

won the nomination, he would somehow have to topple the incumbent Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, who so far is avoiding the ideological pitfalls that marked Mike Pence’s tenure.

Axelrod suggests

that Buttigieg would be wise to play a major role in a presidential campaign in hopes of landing a top administration on the losing end.
Such an analysis could land him on the presidential campaign trail as a candidate after all. Even if all he wins is the same kind of positive reaction to his ideas and message that he generated as a DNC Chair candidate, he is probably

in a stronger position to influence the

direction of the party than running for governor or advising another presidential candidate. And, he could be rewarded for his ideas and approach to government by being asked to join the new administration.
Pete Buttigieg is a brilliant idea position should that candidate win. But the likely Democratic

field—including everyone from

former Vice President Joe Biden to the progressive icon Senator Elizabeth Warren to newcomer California Sen. Kamala Harris is huge. It would be a big gamble to attach himself to any one of them early on. And, it would be a wasted effort if his candidate wound up guy and presidential races are usually driven by ideas. A campaign for the presidency would allow him to continue to showcase his ideas and demonstrate that the most successful progressive ones come from outside the Beltway. v

Sautter is a Democratic consultant based in Wash- ington.

ment visits due to opioid overdoses increased from 28.5

(n=1,856) to 45.0 (n=2,977) occurrences per 100,000

population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that Indiana ranked 15th in the nation in drug overdose deaths at 16.0 per 100,000 people.
Concerning the Senate

Attorney General Hill, from page 1

rising toll among blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans, driving up the overall rate of death among Americans in the prime of their lives. Since the beginning of this decade, death rates have risen among people be-

tween the ages of 25 and 44 in

virtually every racial and ethnic group and almost all states, according to the Post analysis. The death rate among African Ameri-

cans is up 4 percent, Hispanics 7

percent, whites 12 percent and Native Americans 18 percent.”

“What it reflects is an

out-of-control epidemic right now,” said Josh Sharfstein, director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at Johns Hopkins. “It’s affecting the economy. It’s affecting the entire community. This is an absolute call to action for public health.”
The Indiana Departbid, last week Hill told HPI, “I’m very busy with my job as attorney general. I am 100 percent focused on what I’m doing here. I’ve heard comments and I’ve also been approached by people. I think people are looking for bold, fresh leadership in all areas of government, including the United States Senate. For now I’m doing my job and feel pretty good about how we’re doing and will stay focused on that.”
Our interview with Attorney General Hill focused on policy issues:

HPI: What have been the

high points of your first five

ment of Health reported that from 2011 to 2015, the rate of non-fatal emergency depart-

Page 4

months as attorney general and your policy contributions?

Hill: It’s difficult when you come into a new office

and everything is a process. The legislature was already in place. Our biggest challenge was to just get off the ground, introducing myself to the staff of 150 lawyers,

which is effectively the largest law firm in Indiana. I’m

very pleased about the quality the information is developing. We certainly make suggestions and are willing to engage in discussions. There were times when legislators asked, “What do you think about

this?” I think that’s a very solid way of utilizing this office.

There’s a great deal of activity that continues on, consumer protection issues on a daily basis, alerts and things of that nature. I’m of the lawyers who were on

also pleased our office

board when I took over. We made some changes, but by is getting some solid outreach beyond the and large most stayed put. I’m pleased with that. Govern-
Statehouse, with our ability to connect with ment lawyers get knocked as being inferior to the private the public on issues such as public safety. section; I can tell you we’ve got lawyers here that could

HPI: I’ve writ-

ten a lot about public compete with any private lawyers. They are here to safety, meth, opioids and your stance on do public service. That’s the objective. I’m hoping we can marijuana legalization. Tell me where you’d

• let citizenry know that. In
• like to be at the end

of your term with how we’re dealing with what I call the tri-headed hydra? terms of our objectives, our biggest agenda item was to understand where we were, what we can work with, what changes are needed and to how to establish a foundation moving forward. Now with the legislative session over, we’re into the process of understanding what we want to

prioritize. I want to make sure the attorney general’s office

is available to the General Assembly if they want to use us. The attorney general does not write the legislation, but we’ll review legislation if the General Assembly wants us to do it. One of the best ways is to be on the inside as
Hill: Everybody is clear there is a problem; I don’t believe everybody recognizes the depth. Typically what happens is a drug will come along that gets all the focus. Today it’s heroin. What people don’t understand is that while heroin is a hotbed, and extraordinarily dangerous with overdoses occurring on a regular basis, we still have a meth problem. People focusing on meth realize we still have a synthetic drug problem. Much of the root of

Page 5

our drug problem is marijuana as a gateway. It’s not to say that everyone who smokes marijuana will move on to heroin or methamphetamine, but a large group who are on heroin and meth started on marijuana. That is one of the avenues we have to consider in terms of our youth. The average person does not fully recognize how bad it is out there. When you talk about subjects like heroin and meth, there is an alarmingly low rate of effective treatment. Treatment opportunities don’t exist in the numbers they need to, and even if they did exist, the alarming rate

of insufficient recovery is less than 3 percent for metham-

phetamine. That’s tough.
HPI: The early reports from the Indiana State
Police Meth Suppression Unit is that that manufacture of methamphetamine is beginning to drop off. Do you think that will continue?
Hill: Are you talking about the pseudoephedrine?

HPI: Yes.

Hill: Here’s the thing about meth. It all centers on demand; you can attack meth by restricting pseudoephedrine that will have an impact on the ability to make

meth. But if the demand is still there, it will find another

way. That’s what happened in Elkhart. When I started in 2002, we had a problem with

• When you put resources in
• imported Mexican meth coming

and don’t get a better result, that means more and more into the community, therefore we didn’t have a need for the labs. people in addictive behavior going deeper and deeper
Our demand was met by the illegal trade. When we went with a very into substance crisis than you have coming out. That aggressive program and eliminated that source of meth in about 2008, means the problem is going to get worse and it’s going we still had demand. That demand popped up in the form of local to spill over into other areas. We see that in crime, we labs, one-pot cooks, people supplying their own habits and 10 of see that in other areas that draw energy from commutheir buddies’. There are different dangers. With the imported stuff nities. So it’s imperative to recognize the problem and you had criminal gangs, turf wars. On the other hand, with local cook move forward in enforcement and treatment.
HPI: Elkhart had a cocaine problem; was it the kind of crack problem that Fort Wayne and eventually Indianapolis had?
Hill: Drugs are a demographic issue. In Lake
County you don’t see a huge problem in heroin as in other parts of the state. But you still see a lot of crack cocaine. Same thing with southern Indiana, in different pockets. There are areas that you have to address differently. We have people who don’t have the requisite hope and purpose to be able to avoid falling into this pit. I think that’s troubling.
HPI: I was in Fort Wayne when crack morphed into curbside dealers, gang turf wars and drive-by shootings. As a county prosecutor, what did you learn in the evolution of crack cocaine and how can you apply it to what you’re doing now?
Hill: There’s a cyclical nature to it. You sense that crack cocaine problems went with a particular set and when they were either incarcerated or died or otherwise grown out of it, you’d see the problem morph into something else, particularly with the gang side of it. It was very prominent in the ‘90s. In my community, crack gave way to methamphetamine and we had stuff coming in from south of the border, much of it coming in with the illegal population. Crack is still there but the meth became more prevalent. The people who were selling and dealing it weren’t the people using it. The distinction between the dealers and users is necessary to get a handle on the process. operations you have environmental nightmares. It was a completely different set of problems. You still have a demand that needs to be fed. What I learned is that it’s not as simple as taking PSE off the shelves. That can assist you with eliminating the number of labs, but these folks are very, very resourceful. If it’s not available in this

community or this form, they’ll find some other way. It’s

kind of a moving target. You have to deal with the cook aspect and the imported aspect. That’s why it’s imperative that while we talk about treatment, we have to talk about interdiction out of our state as a critical piece.
HPI: We realize that if you take away the home-

cooked stuff, the Mexican gangs will fill in. But from our

perspective, the collateral damage with the number of children found in meth labs, the number of public safety

officials who were injured or contaminated, and the num-

ber of contaminated homes going off the tax rolls and costing thousands of dollars of mitigation was reason to pursue the PSE retail restrictions.
Hill: Those are all legitimate, and who’s to say which is worse? Who’s to say I’d rather have meth in my neighborhood and environmental problem as opposed to gangsters who are peddling cheap high-quality, highgrade meth in my neighborhood. Both have different dangers.
HPI: You had a disagreement with Gov. Holcomb over his support of needle exchanges to mitigate the heroin and public health pandemics. Any new developments there?
Hill: No. The needle exchange to the average

Page 6

citizen is just a one-on-one exchange: “I’ve got a dirty needle, I turn that in and get a clean one.” Some people can buy into that as an appropriate form to address the

disease spreading of HIV and hepatitis C. The difficulty

I have with that is, it’s not truly an exchange when between April 2015 and December 2016 according to the Governor’s Task Force, 120,000 more needles went out. Many more needles going out means a greater risk of overdose and death. That’s unacceptable. For the state to promote that is a concern, and I expressed my concern. I was surprised there was more reaction to the attorney general actually testifying at a hearing, over the objections I raised. The concerns were substantive. We were very clear that while we had those concerns we would work with the administration and the General Assembly

to assist and provide more metrics. My office did try to

work with all to address the issue of accountability. This particular legislation expands the exchange beyond what was set up for the Scott County situation, which, if you recall was supposed to be an emergency to address the

HIV and Hep-C flare-up. Therefore you had to quality for

an emergency through the state health director and then you could have a program in your county. This current statute relieved counties of the need to declare an emergency. It’s not about HIV and Hep spreading. It gives the impression that it addresses the underlying issue of the heroin epidemic, which I believe is misleading. Once you put aside the disease aspect, the needle exchanges don’t help with the overall issue of heroin. We moved forward

without sufficient standards. We need to have data that

we aren’t doing more harm than good by allowing counties to engage in needle exchange. A number of legislators were not aware that the packets being sent out contained needles, antiseptic, the tie band, the spoon for cooking and a couple of condoms. I don’t think that’s what they bargained for, so moving forward we wanted everyone to understand what we’re dealing with. It’s certainly within the purview of the governor and General Assembly to take the action they have taken, but from my standpoint we must promote and defend what’s happening to families, and I think that’s going down the wrong track.
HPI: You’ve taken a hard line stance against the legalization of marijuana of any form. We’ve got 26 states and the District of Columbia which have legalized marijuana in some form. Is it worth Indiana looking at the experiments in all these states, particularly the impact of medicinal marijuana, especially when you have organizations like the American Legion calling for that form of access?
Hill: In terms of research I’ve done, there are a number of states that have engaged in this process and have and are developing data that is frightening. I’m hoping Indiana won’t consider it. But if Indiana decides to, there’s lots of information to assess the dangers that could pop up here. Those states are fair game. From the

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standpoint of medicinal purposes, my concern is there’s a great deal of difference between extracting the ingredient

of marijuana and doing it in a qualified laboratory setting

with a pharmaceutical company and having it by prescription, FDA approved, etc. The big difference between that and cousin Ted bringing in some Colombian Gold in the kitchen sink, smoking some, feeling better and calling that medicinal, that’s getting high. So I don’t object to extracting the active ingredient through a process and providing medical change. But that’s not what we’re talking about. When you see the number of pharmacies in Denver that are half the number of marijuana distribution sites, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. It’s an excuse to access marijuana for whatever reason, and that’s something people need to be aware of. There are well-documented risk factors, particularly with young people using marijuana at an early age and sustained use that could have a very negative impact on their development, as well as our society and economy in terms of types of and address cyber security issues to understand what more we can do. We want to try and balance consumer protection and the ability to do business. We don’t want to

over regulate but we have to sufficiently regulate.
HPI: Do you see yourself and your office as being