Pubdate: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 Source: Clarion-Ledger, The (MS) Copyright: 2002 The Clarion-Ledger Contact: http://www.clarionledger.com/about/letters.html Website: http://www.clarionledger.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/805 Author: William Raspberry Note: This OPED appeared in several papers including Dallas Morning News (TX), State Journal-Register (IL), Times Union (Albany, NY), Houston Chronicle (TX) and the Washington Post (DC) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) FIRST-TIME DRUG ABUSERS DON'T NEED JAIL TIME WASHINGTON - Noelle Bush, 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine in her shoe. The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of court for the latest offense. Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of this young woman. No, I don't mean she should be hauled off in irons to do hard time in some hellhole of a prison. ( The judge did send her to jail for 10 days. ) I think she should be - well, sent back to rehab. My problem with Noelle Bush, I am saying, is not that she should be treated the way so many other drug-abusers are treated, but that these luckless others should be treated after her example. Most Americans, I believe, would agree - up to a point. We think some combination of probation and rehabilitation makes sense for first-time drug offenders whose only harm is to themselves - no robberies, no driving under the influence, no stealing. But what if these first-timers violate their rehabilitation ( as Bush did, when she was diverted to a special drug court after her arrest last January on charges of using a false prescription to try to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax )? She was sent to jail for three days in July when she was found with an unauthorized prescription drug. And now the crack charge. Isn't it time the Florida courts showed her they're serious? The question presupposes that drug offenders who violate the rules of their treatment aren't serious - that they agree to treatment merely because it's the only way to avoid going to prison. But suppose the violations are tokens not so much of contempt as of the power of the addiction? Think Darryl Strawberry. Think Robert Downey Jr. Think all those people who blow one break after another, who lose jobs, status, family, even their lives because they won't - or can't - leave drugs alone. How many times should we avoid throwing such people in jail for their violations of the law? "As long as it takes to get them well.'' That's Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, when I put the question to him. "No way she belongs in a jail cell, as long as she hasn't committed an offense against another person,'' he said. "Would you jail a cancer patient for violating his treatment protocol? A diabetic for not taking her insulin? Would you jail an overweight person who is on a diet for eating bread, knowing that the bread was bad for him?'' But having cancer or diabetes is not against the law, and bread - though arguably bad for overweight people - isn't an illegal substance. Which, in a way, is Nadelmann's point. We invoke the public health as the reasons we make certain substances illegal, but then we allow our policy to be driven by the illegality rather than by health considerations. If the illegality is the main consideration, then maybe it makes sense that Strawberry is behind bars. And if health is? "If one form of treatment doesn't work, then try another form,'' says Nadelmann. "And if that one doesn't work, then try another one. As with many medical or psychological problems, one treatment doesn't work for everybody. But you don't punish a patient because the treatment fails.'' On this score, Nadelmann makes sense. So does Raag Singhal, a criminal defense lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, who agrees that while Noelle Bush may have been treated better than the inner-city youngster we normally think about when we hear the word "crack,'' she's probably having a rougher time of it than the children of other wealthy, but less visible, parents. As he sees it, the young woman has a problem, and what makes sense is not to punish her but to find the right treatment for her sickness. I wish the young woman's father and uncle could see it that way - and not just for cases involving their own families.