Retired Richmond City Police Captain Mike Zohab has been on the front lines policing drug dealers and addicts for nearly 30 years, an experience he says changed his views on drug use drug. Today, he directs the Virginia Recovery Foundation, which provides free access to drug treatment programs statewide and provides scholarships for those willing to pay it forward.
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Mike Zohab: I started with the Richmond Police Department in 1988 doing surveillance in a heroin area here in Jackson Ward. I watched a young lady, she must have been in her late teens, and she went down the gutter, and was picking up needles to find a needle to use. And she was at least seven months pregnant. It was their life.
The next thing we’re going to do is we’re going to look at common themes and barriers and what resources don’t exist that we could add.
Mike Zohab: There was a movement in Boston. He’s a small-town police chief who started letting people in, knocking, approaching any policeman, and we’ll help get you treated. And I was like, well, why can’t we do this? And I had the Richmond Police Department, my cell phone number, my personal cell phone number, 24 hours a day, and we would send someone to the ER if he overdosed, or somewhere safe , to see if we could interest someone in getting treatment. And the first year the lights went on, we placed 72 people in addiction treatment over a 12-month period.
Anthony Grimes: We wouldn’t take someone who has cancer and steals and steals to get their cancer drugs. We would not regard them as society as being morally imperfect. We would consider them to have a fatal disease and they desperately need treatment. So when you have someone like Mike Zohab, who comes from a street background, boots on the court, and sees that the problem is not with the individuals who live in our society. The problem is how we connect them to the appropriate resources.
Mike Zohab: I always help people seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to navigate the system. But we wanted to have more impact. And this is where the scholarship program evolved.
Rob Fingan: One of the helpful parts of recovery is asking a counselor or professional to provide you with psychological or psychiatric counseling. And it’s especially powerful that the person has experienced recovery. So we like the idea of funding someone’s education, so they don’t have student debt when they enter the workforce and help people recover.
Thomas Bannard: Most people don’t argue with me when I say college campuses are hostile environments or hostile recovery environments. And one of the things Virginia Recovery Foundation has supported throughout its time is college recovery. Especially when you have a space for people to congregate, then people can kind of walk into the space and realize that I’m not alone. I’m not the only person here struggling with this thing.
Mike Zohab: All my life experiences have given me a basis to do this with the state. Because I arrive with my eyes wide open and my ears wide open, and I ask questions, this question “why”. And if I hear, “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it,” I literally roll my eyes, shake my head, and say, “You’re kidding me.” I have an incredible passion for it. I mean, it’s stubborn.
