Recovering Addict Supports State Questions 780, 781

At 18-years-old Meagan Gaddis was addicted to drugs.

“Anything,” Gaddis said. “Marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine, alcohol, opiates…”

Now 29, she spent her college years on the street, ultimately addicted to meth. Her life had become a revolving door between the needle and the jail cell.

“The only thing that I knew, that was familiar to me was to get arrested I took a check that was made out to somebody else and I took it to Walmart and I signed my name to the back of it and I said could you call the cops because I'm trying to go to prison,” Gaddis said.

But she didn't go to prison, instead she was able to get treatment because of a plan only offered in Oklahoma County to single mothers, and it's the reason why she's support state questions 780 and 781.

The questions are joined together. State question 780 reduces several felony drug crimes to misdemeanors. State question 781, which can only pass if 780 does, sets up rehab and job training programs designed to get drug users out of prison and back into the workforce.

But law enforcement officials say it will make their jobs harder and potentially put more drugs and drug dealers back on the streets.

“Just because there's a problem, the first person to stand up and say here's a solution doesn't make it the right solution,” Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Mark Nelson said in a previous interview.

10/21/16 Related Story: Oklahoma Police Officers Voice Opposition To SQ 780, 781

But Meagan disagrees. “We can be smart on crime instead of tough on crime and then we can start changing things that need to be changed.”