Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jun 2008
Source: Pasadena Star-News, The (CA)
Copyright: 2008 Pasadena Star News
Contact: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/728
Author: Kim Raney
Note: Kim Raney is the chief of police for the city of Covina. He is 
also president of the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Association.
Referenced: NORA http://www.NORAyes.com
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

KEEPING FORCE BEHIND DRUG LAWS

NOTHING in this state has torn more families apart than illegal 
drugs. The addictive nature of drugs has ensnared people from every 
walk of life-young, old, rich, poor, married or single; millions of 
people have fallen victim to the lure of drugs.

Once hooked, drug users have gone to unfathomable lengths to acquire 
their next high. Crimes of every type from prostitution, fraud, 
theft, robbery, assaults, even murder were all committed to help 
someone hopelessly addicted to drugs get their hands on more drugs.

For years, law enforcement tried to arrest their way out of the drug 
addiction problem that plagues every city in California. It clearly 
has not worked. Voters recognized this and frustrated with this 
situation passed Proposition 36 in 2000. However, Proposition 36 has 
been a colossal failure with more than 75 percent of participants 
going back to drugs. Prop. 36 has failed because there are no 
meaningful sanctions for failure - a defendant can have three 
failures under Prop. 36 before they can be held accountable. The 
failures of Prop. 36 were tragically displayed when CHP Officer Scott 
Russell was murdered by a Prop. 36 treatment failure.

Now the same group that brought us Prop. 36, Drug Policy Alliance, is 
trying to push another scam, the Non-Violent Offender Rehabilitation 
Act (NORA) which will be on the November ballot. NORA takes the 
weakest elements of Prop. 36 and aggravates them by allowing 
defendants to fail a minimum of five times before they can be held 
accountable. To make matters worse, NORA will also permit suspects 
who commit other crimes, even crimes against others, to evade 
responsibility for those crimes if they claim "the drugs made me do it."

Once an offender makes this assertion, the burden of proof is on the 
prosecution to show why the defendant should not be admitted into the 
program. This non-accountability will create a revolving door of 
offenders who blame their behavior on drugs.

There are many other destructive provisions in NORA including:

Providing drug dealers with "preferred parole," meaning most drug 
dealers will be off parole in six months after leaving prison.

Reducing the penalty for possession of an ounce of marijuana to an 
infraction - the equivalent of a traffic ticket that doesn't carry a 
criminal record, giving the user even less incentive to enter drug treatment.

Recently, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals voiced 
their opposition to NORA stating: "NORA advances a number of 
politically controversial positions. These include the explicit 
decriminalization of marijuana possession ..." and "NORA fails to 
learn many of the lessons of Proposition 36 regarding the importance 
of holding offenders meaningfully accountable for their actions ..."

The bottom line is that NORA looks to finish what Prop. 36 started - 
the decriminalization of drugs. NORA further weakens the penalty for 
drug users and dealers and weakens the incentive for any user to get 
the help the Drug Policy Alliance claims they want for drug users. In 
essence, NORA gives drug users no hope, only more second chances that 
keep the revolving door of drug use, and crimes that go with it, going.

Addicts must have an incentive to leave the hopeless lifestyle behind 
and most often, only the threat of incarceration is the incentive 
necessary to participate and stay away from drugs. In essence, 
treatment is the hope and incarceration is the hammer. And without 
the hammer, there can be no hope for addicts.

Keep this in mind when the Drug Policy Alliance begins to flood the 
airwaves and newspapers with promises of more chances, when in 
reality they are using people in the most vulnerable of positions, 
those hopelessly addicted to drugs, to push their own agenda of drug 
decriminalization.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake