Pubdate: Tue, 21 Nov 2000
Source: Herald-Journal (NY)
Copyright: 2000, Syracuse Herald-Journal
Contact:  P.O. Box 4915, Syracuse, N.Y. 13221-4915
Website: http://www.syracuse.com/
Forum: http://www.syracuse.com/forums/

FIX DRUG LAWS

Voters Make Wise Choices As Legislators Abdicate Their Responsibility.

One vote in which there was a clear majority and clear winners is the 
initiative passed in California to require that non-violent drug offenders 
receive rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

A full 61 percent of California voters recognized that the 
traditional-style war on drugs is not working. They recognized that too 
many addicts are simply that - not necessarily criminals. And they 
recognized that those who are locked up while still addicted simply keep 
using. When they get out, they are likely to commit more crimes and go 
straight back to prison.

Proposition 36 was put on the ballot in California by longtime foes of the 
drug war. But the people there really responded. About $120 million will be 
spent each of the next five years to set up the program. But the amount 
that can be saved in lowered prison costs, health expenses and human misery 
is likely to be much, much more.

They may be on to something. Consider that the federal drug-fighting budget 
is nearly $18 billion. It was $1 billion in 1980. More than $20 billion a 
year is spent by state and local governments. Yet does anyone believe there 
are fewer drug addicts today than 20 years ago?

Nationwide, drugs and drug-related offenses now account for about one-third 
of all arrests, more than any other category of crime, the FBI reports. The 
Arizona program on which the California system will be modeled found in its 
first year that after rehabilitation, 61 percent of addicts do not end up 
back in jail.

California voters and those who backed the proposition acted in the absence 
of their state Legislature. Those folks, like many across the country, are 
more interested in re-election insurance than in making changes in drug 
policy. They cling tightly to the tough-on-crime label while wasting untold 
millions on incarceration and ignoring the crime and misery ongoing drug 
habits perpetuate. There, voters took matters into their own hands.

Here in New York state, the voice of rationality is Chief Judge Judith 
Kaye. In June, she ordered that judges offer first-time non-violent drug 
offenders the chance for rehabilitation instead of prison. After pleading 
guilty, offenders could enter treatment. The problem is that Kaye doesn't 
have the budget to put a plan in place like California's. And, some 
opponents to her plan cast it as an end-run around the Legislature. But who 
cares. The Legislature has abdicated its responsibility when it comes to 
instituting rational drug policies.

This state continues to lock up drug users for terms longer than some of 
those received by the most violent criminals. And the Legislature, despite 
pleas from the very people who passed the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws, 
has done nothing. Instead, New Yorkers pay millions and millions of dollars 
to imprison these non-violent offenders, leaving them to a graduate course 
in lawlessness to prepare them for their release.

Locally, 5th Judicial District Administrative Justice James Tormey III 
recently made the case for expanding the already successful "Unified Drug 
Treatment Court," as Kaye has proposed. Speaking last Thursday at the 
Thursday Morning Roundtable, Tormey said 76 percent of the people sentenced 
to the Onondaga County Correctional Facility in Jamesville have significant 
substance-abuse problems. And each one of them costs about $35,000 a year 
to house. A drug court operated by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes 
for more than 10 years has had a 60 percent success rate at keeping 
offenders off drugs.

Kaye, other judges and the voters of California have taken courageous and 
practical stands in the fight against drugs. It is now time that those who 
write the laws take notice. Rehabilitation is more effective, more humane 
and in the long run cheaper than incarceration. Legislators who do not take 
that into consideration are not serving their constituents, and they are 
spending money foolishly. 
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager