Pubdate: [Wed, 01 Oct 1997]
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Author: Nora C. Callahan

Officers could do real police work if fewer users in jail
If we stopped arresting and incarcerating drug users and our police had to
pursue real criminals, Police Chief John H. Turner's force would have to
solve real crimes -- find the rapist, solve murder cased and catch a
theif. Police would have to return to food oldfashioned investigative
police work and lay off their snitches and confidential informants. That
Turner is proud of Washington's Lt. Gov. Brad Owen comes as no suprise to
me.
Turners comments on I-685 are just more of the same political posturing
about being tough on crime, when it is long past time to get smart on
social problems. Why should our limited prison space be taken up by drug
users when it has been proven that drug treatment is far more effective
than incarceration?  It costs the taxpayer far less too.
I am weary of the text of I-685 being misrepresented.  Turner wrote, "It
is clear that if I-685 were to pass, heroin and other illegitimate drugs
would become legal." Those drugs would not become legal; they would be
available through prescription by a physician. Morphine is prescribed now
and remains a controlled substance. The same would be true of heroin if
I-685 were to pass. Europian physicians prescribe heroin for pain
management and having done so, they did not stand by for an epidemic of
crime.
My hope is that the people of Washington state can see past the same
hysterical political rhetoric of the past 30 years and see their way to
pass a humane and effective policy. I am voting yes on I-685 and I'll be
proud of anyone who does.
Nora Callahan

Colville, WA