Pubdate: Fri, 01 Nov 2013
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Robert L. DuPont
Note: DuPont is a physician and president of the Institute for 
Behavior and Health, Inc., and former director of the National 
Institute on Drug Abuse.

LEVERAGING JUSTICE SYSTEM TO REDUCE DRUG USE

The success of marijuana legalization in some states has put drug 
policy at the top of nation's attention for the first time since the 
cocaine epidemic in the late 1980s.

At the heart of drug legalization is the conviction that the top 
priority of drug reform is to get the criminal justice system out of 
drug policy because our prisons are full of innocent drug users, 
particularly marijuana users, caught up in the failed "War on Drugs." 
In this view, drug legalization will empty our prisons and yield big 
financial savings.

The truth is that very few of the many drug users in prison are there 
for drug possession. They are in prison because they committed serious crimes.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2011, 17 percent of 
state prisoners served time for drug crimes (compared to 53 percent 
for violent offenses, and 18 percent for property crime). Federal 
prisoners make up only 13 percent of the total prison population. 
Although about half of federal prisoners served time for drug 
offenses as their most serious offense in 2009, 99 percent of these 
prisoners were convicted of drug trafficking, not drug use. Marijuana 
possession alone puts next to no one in prison. The goal of drug 
policy reform must not be simply to turn criminals loose from prison.

That would worsen their drug problems and perpetuate their criminality.

We know that drug use plays a big role in all sorts of crime.

For example, a study of male arrestees in 10 sites in the United 
States showed that more than 60 percent tested positive for illicit 
drugs at the time of arrest.

The goal of drug-policy reform should be to reduce imprisonment and 
to reduce drug use by addicted prisoners while also reducing criminal 
recidivism. Few Americans realize that we have homegrown programs 
that do just that. These programs use the leverage of the criminal 
justice system to help offenders become and stay drug-free. When 
offenders stop using drugs, crime goes down and so does imprisonment.

This new model for handling convicted criminals with serious drug 
problems began with the creation of the first drug court in Miami in 
1989. Drug courts are the best new idea in drug policy in the past 
three decades.

With more than 2,700 drug courts, and another 1,100 related 
problem-solving courts, drug courts are now spreading around the world.

An innovation in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2004 extended this model to a 
larger proportion of the drug-using offender population and showed 
the way to successfully integrate these new efforts with drug courts. 
Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) can serve the 
roughly 4 million of the nation's 5 million probationers and paroles 
who have serious drug problems.

HOPE uses frequent random drug-testing to detect drug use. Any drug 
use or other program violation is met with an immediate but brief 
jail stay. In this approach treatment is provided for those who 
request it or who demonstrate that they can't stop using drugs with 
the program alone.

The results of a randomized trial of HOPE were impressive: compared 
to offenders on standard probation, HOPE probationers were 72 percent 
less likely to use drugs, 55 percent less likely to be arrested for a 
new crime, 61 percent less likely to skip appointments with their 
supervisory officer, 53 percent less likely to have their probation 
revoked and had 48 percent fewer days of incarceration.

Drug courts provide close supervision to offenders using a 
multidisciplinary team approach that includes intensive treatment, 
drug testing, graduated sanctions and rewards, and individualized 
care management. Drug courts reduce crime and drug use, and produce a 
cost savings of $3,000 to $13,000 per drug-court participant.

Rather than removing the criminal justice system from drug policy as 
drug legalization does, now is the time to use the leverage of the 
criminal justice system to reduce drug use, reduce recidivism and 
reduce incarceration. Linking drug courts and HOPE for all of 
community corrections is an inspiring example of how the current 
national focus on drug policy reform can be used - not to surrender 
to the modern drug epidemic as drug legalization does, but, rather, 
to reduce the nation's prison population while also reducing drug 
abuse, reducing crime and saving money.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom