Pubdate: Mon, 21 Oct 2002
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
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)

A CONTEMPTIBLE SYSTEM

Noelle Bush, the 25-year-old daughter of the governor of Florida and niece 
of the president of the United States, was already in a drug rehabilitation 
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 
reason 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 Bush might 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.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D