Our traditional justice system has been inadequate to the task of breaking the cycle of substance abuse and crime. Four out of every five offenses are committed by someone with a drug or alcohol problem; and we just keep locking them up!

In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That’s far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time. Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.

Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse. And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually. On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.

Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there’s absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.

The addicted in prison truth is:
We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth
We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility
We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless
We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust
We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them
We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty
We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected
We want them quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof
We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other
We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society
So we make them totally dependent on us

I am speaking up about this matter because I have personally been addicted to Meth for 17 years (other drugs and alcohol 30 years total). I am clean and sober for many years, but unfortunately I had to go to another state (other than my home state of New Mexico) to go to Rehab. A recovery friendly community made all the difference in my miracle

Please help stop the war on drugs. Prohibition has never worked and never will.
Thanks, Ken Larson

August 21, 2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.

Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory – although no penalties for noncompliance are specified.

The maximum amount of marijuana considered to be for “personal use” under the new law is 5 grams – the equivalent of about four marijuana cigarettes. Other limits are half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

LEAPing to legal drugs

(J.R. Oppenheim/Daily News)

Drug warriors from across the country are banding together to ask people to support the legalization of drugs.

Judges, prosecutors, prison wardens, corrections staff and police officers have organized to educate the public about the damage and cost of the war against illegal drugs.

The premise of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, is the war on drugs cannot be won and the benefit of regulating, taxing and controlling these substances far outweighs the cost in tax dollars and human lives trying to suppress them.

“We are spending more than $80 billion a year to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate people in the war on drugs,” said Mike Jones, a speaker for LEAP who was visiting Otero County during the county fair this weekend.

Jones, who now lives in Rancho de Taos, spent 20 years with the Gainesville, Fla. police department. His first year there was spent as an undercover narcotics agent, and his last three years were as deputy chief of police.

“It was obvious to me the effort to control drugs was doomed to fail,” he said. “It was impossible to achieve. We were spending time dealing with narcotics when we could have been using resources in different ways.”

Jones said his anti-drug war position was not popular in Florida.

A few years ago, after he retired to New Mexico, Jones found LEAP on the Internet, joined the cause, contributed, bought bumperstickers and volunteered for the speakers bureau.

“After 40 years of fighting the drug war, drugs are cheaper, stronger and easier to get than ever,” Jones said. “So after 40 years we haven’t achieved our goals. Any company failing at goals and objectives for 40 years wouldn’t be in business.”

Over that 40-year time period, Jones said, violence associated with drugs has continued to escalate. He said it’s like a chess match with the good guys coming up with new ways to fight and the bad guys matching by coming up with violent solutions every time.

More money poured into the drug war means “more troops, more guns, more violence and the drugs continue to flow,” Jones said.

By legalizing and regulating drug use, not only would the violence be eliminated, but negative health issues would be reduced, impurities and mystery substances would be eliminated, Jones said.

The first step, he added, is for lawmakers and policy makers to take swift action.

“Citizens need to advise their representatives to end the insanity and move forward,” he said.

The goal of LEAP is to education people on the issue, Jones said.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It effects everyone. One of our members will tell you his views are just to the right of Atilla the Hun but drugs need to be legal.”

LEAP does not advocate the use of legal or illegal drugs, Jones said.

“We believe that [it] is a personal decision attached to personal responsibility.”
Contact Elva K. Österreich at eosterreich@alamogordonews.com.

In spite of the nationwide prohibition of street drugs, New Mexico and Otero County, as well as the rest of the United States, has a persistently growing drug problem with increasing numbers of younger students using drugs and alcohol.

With that is the typically disastrous results of addiction, incarceration, unintended pregnancies, failing grades and school drop-outs. While education and law enforcement are making strides in stopping the illegal drug trade while educating our youth about the consequences of drug use, drug and alcohol use continues to be a devastating problem, suggesting once again that peer-pressure can be a stronger force than education.

Making drugs illegal has, no doubt, been a deterrent to the vast majority of Americans. On the other hand, this has put the burden of the drug war on law enforcement and the judicial system, especially since 1986 when Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which mandated judges to deliver fixed sentences to individuals convicted of the crime of addiction, regardless of culpability or other mitigating circumstances.

Overwhelmingly, drug defendants 85 percent of them are nonviolent, according to Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Yet many mostly minorities and the poor are convicted of felonies and receive mandatory minimum sentences of five to 10 years or more. Also, those addicted at the time of their incarceration are generally still addicted upon release and still need treatment.

While giving a big boost to the private prison industry, incarcerating drug offenders is expensive for the tax payer. In New Mexico, the average cost of incarceration is $30,000 per inmate per year. The average cost of probation and parole in New Mexico is $1,533 per person per year. According to a 1998 study conducted at the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, the average cost for drug treatment per year is between $1,800 for regular outpatient care and $6,800 for long-term residential care.

For each person that receives treatment, rather than being incarcerated, New Mexico could save between $22,000 and $27,000 per year (prison savings less probation/parole and treatment costs), according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

The American Medical Association has given formal recognition to the disease concept regarding addiction since 1956. Medically, addiction is classified as a chronic disease similar to other chronic diseases such as Type II diabetes, hypertension, asthma and cardiovascular disease. Research conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse has shown that they all have similar relapse rates.

Addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disorder that should be managed with all the tools at medicine’s disposal. While lifestyle choices may be a contributing factor in diabetes, lung cancer or cardiac disease and is the only factor in an addict’s first use. No one regards lifestyle choice as a reason to withhold treatment for any of these conditions, except for addiction.

Just as it takes an average of seven attempts for a smoker to quit tobacco, we should understand that relapse is an integral part of the disease of any addiction. We should treat the addict with the same care and compassion we treat diabetes or cardiac patients struggling to make prescribed lifestyle changes.
Ken Nicholson represents Peace & Justice, of La Luz. This column is provided as a service of the Otero County Community Health Council and the Alamogordo Daily News as a way to provide the latest in health and wellness information, services and events. This column is submitted by OCCHC partners and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the OCCHC.

Giving credit where credit is due while holding my nose, Glenn Beck has shown a rare moment of intelligence and sanity in his interview with Andres Rozental, former Foreign Minister of Mexico.

I will, however, question the Fox News statistic stating that US marijuana use is down 24% since 1998.

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws require harsh, automatic prison terms for those convicted of certain crimes, most often drug offenses. Congress enacted mandatory minimums in 1986 and toughened them in 1988 to apply to drug conspiracies and certain gun offenses. The sentence is determined solely by the weight and type of drug, or the presence of a firearm during a felony offense.

Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentencing laws to catch drug “kingpins” and deter drug sales and use. But the laws undermine the American tradition of justice by preventing judges from fitting the punishment to the individual’s role in the offense. Because of mandatory sentencing laws, the population of federal prisons has soared and they are filled with low-level, nonviolent drug law violators – not the “kingpins” mandatory sentences intended to apprehend.

Why should mandatory minimums be changed?
Judges no longer control sentencing. Mandatory minimums shift control over sentencing to prosecutors. Prosecutors determine the charge, which can require a mandatory sentence; whether the case is tried in state or federal court; and whether the defendant has provided enough useful information to be given reduced sentence for cooperation.

Judges no longer consider the fact of each case or the individual’s role. The charge determines if the sentence is mandatory. If it is, only the weight and type of drug, or the presence of a firearm during a felony offense, determines its length. The judge cannot lower a mandatory sentence because of the circumstances of the case or a person’s role, motivation, or likelihood of repeating the crime.

Conspiracy laws make those at the top and those at the bottom of the drug trade equally culpable. Low-level defendants – drug couriers, addicts or those on the periphery of the drug trade – often have no information to give to prosecutors for a sentence reduction, unlike those who are most culpable and thus more likely to receive a reduced sentence for cooperation.

Mandatory minimums are rarely imposed on drug “kingpins.” For example, the majority of federal cocaine offenders generally perform lower level functions. Only six percent of cocaine and crack offenders are in the top two roles of the drug chain. (U.S. Sentencing Commission, Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, 2002)

Mandatory minimums are the least cost-effective means of reducing drug use and sales. A 1997 RAND study found that treatment of heavy users is eight to nine times more cost-effective than long sentences. It costs $23,000 annually to incarcerate an addict, but $1,800 for outpatient and $6,800 for residential drug treatment.

Public support has waned. Fifty-six percent of adults favor elimination of mandatory sentencing laws in favor of letting judges choose the appropriate sentence. ({Peter D. Hart Research, 2003)

Who serves mandatory minimums?
Nonviolent drug defendants. Overwhelmingly, federal drug defendants – 85 percent of them – are nonviolent. Yet many receive mandatory minimums of five or 10 years or more, without regard for their role in the offense.

People of color. More people of color are serving time in federal prisons than their populations would indicate. African Americans account for 13 percent of the general population, yet in 2003 they comprised 27 percent of those receiving federal mandatory drug sentences. Hispanics constituted 12.5 percent of the general population but received 43 percent of the drug mandatory sentences.

An increasing number of women. Women are the fastest-growing sector of the prison population. Nearly 66 percent of the federal female prisoners are serving drug sentences. Taking a message for a boyfriend involved in a drug deal or driving him to the bank can lead to “conspiracy” charges, and the woman can be held liable for the entire amount of drugs sold.

Family members. Three out of five federal prisoners have children; their mean sentence is 10 years. Two-thirds of fathers and three-quarters of mothers in federal prison were convicted of drug offenses.

How should mandatory minimums be changed?
Restore judges’ discretion to fit the punishment to the individual. Judges – not legislators, prosecutors, or defense attorneys – should determine appropriate sentences based on the facts of each case they consider. To insure a judge’s decision will meet standards for appropriate punishment, the prosecutor or the defendant can appeal the judge’s sentence. This safeguard, and sentencing guidelines, prevent judges from delivering sentences that are too soft or too tough.

Support sentencing guidelines. In 1986, Congress established sentencing guidelines and mandated using guidelines ranges for all offenses. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court made the guidelines advisory. Those now-advisory guidelines help prevent wildly disparate sentences for similar crimes, while allowing for sentence adjustments based on culpability. Although not perfect, guidelines do a better job of ensuring that the punishment fits the crime and the defendant.

Address the drug problem at the front end. National polls show that the public believes education and prevention programs are better ways to deal with the drug problem than harsh prison sentences. According to the RAND corporation, dollar for dollar, treatment is seven times more effective than law enforcement or interdiction in reducing the demand for cocaine.

“The addict’s brain is malfunctioning, as surely as the pancreas in someone with diabetes. In both cases, “lifestyle choices” may be contributing factors, but no one regards that as a reason to withhold insulin from a diabetic.” “Addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin flood the brain with the neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical that induces a sensation of pleasure and trains the subconscious to remember everything that preceded that sensation.

Together with alcohol, nicotine and amphetamines, these make up the five drugs generally considered the hardest to give up; right now, some 22 million Americans are hooked on at least one of these substances. While each causes a distinct form of intoxication and a different range of side effects and health problems, all five hijack the same pathway, deep within the brain.”

Excerpts from “What Addicts Need” by Jeneen Interlandi and printed in Newsweek, March 3, 2008.

Research Summary Half of all prison inmates are dependent on drugs — including many incarcerated on non drug-related offenses — but less than 20 percent get the treatment they need, according to a new report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

“Addiction is a stigmatized disease that the criminal justice system often fails to view as a medical condition; as a consequence, its treatment is not as available as it is for other medical conditions,” said Redonna K. Chandler, principal author of the report and chief of NIDA’s Services Research Branch.

NIDA researchers stressed that the criminal-justice system is ideal for getting people into treatment and applying pressure to complete therapy. They noted that a dollar spent on drug courts, for example, saves $4 in healthcare costs, while a dollar spent on prison-based treatment saves $2-$6.

The study appears in the Jan. 14, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

By Tony Newman, AlterNet
Posted on January 12, 2009, Printed on January 13, 2009

The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars waging its 40-year “war on drugs,” responsible for the imprisonment of 500,000 of our fellow American citizens. Despite this enormous waste of money and lives, drugs are as easily available and cheap as ever. The drug-warmongers say it is all for the safety and protection of our children, yet high schoolers all over the country can easily obtain just about any illegal drug they are seeking in this unregulated market. Half of all high-school seniors will have tried marijuana before graduating. The government’s latest Monitoring the Future report, released in December, indicates that more young people are now choosing to smoke pot rather than cigarettes.

Despite these disheartening facts, there is reason for optimism and hope. More and more people are joining the movement to end the failed war on drugs. Passionate people in every neighborhood and from every walk of life, liberals and conservatives, are joining this fast-growing movement. Though there are some compelling reasons drugs should remain illegal, we should at least begin an honest discussion about the root causes of the violence and the range of options to deal with the harms associated with prohibition. It is clear that the strategy of the past 40 years is not working. Below are five opportunities to engage our fellow citizens, discuss the enormous challenges we face, and come up with solutions to reduce the harms of both drug misuse and drug prohibition.

1. Drug Prohibition is Creating a Bloodbath Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Thanks to the drug war, a bloody war is raging in Mexico right now — spilling into otherwise low-crime U.S. cities along the border! Over 5,000 Mexicans have been killed this year alone as a direct result of drug prohibition — more deaths than all the fallen American service members since the Iraq War began. Whole towns and communities are living in fear with no one  — neither politicians, judges, journalists nor pop stars  — immune from the violence.

Classrooms are half empty because children are afraid to go to school; decapitated heads are left in the streets; and there are even murders occurring in hospitals where gunmen go to “complete” the job. Nothing in the coca or marijuana plant causes these deaths. Rather, it is prohibition that creates a profit motive people are willing to kill for. Remember, when alcohol consumption was illegal in this country we had Al Capone and shootouts in the streets. Today, no one dies over the sale of a beer.

This week, the border town of El Paso, Texas, passed a resolution suggesting an open and honest dialogue on ending drug prohibition. The nonbinding resolution suggested that legalizing drugs in the U.S. could help curb a volatile and bloody drug war that last year claimed nearly 1,600 lives in the city of Juarez, just across the Rio Grande. In Arizona, State Attorney General Terry Goddard said we should consider legalizing marijuana, observing that marijuana sales are responsible for up to 75 percent of the money that cartels use for smuggling other drugs and for combating the army and police in Mexico. Goddard contends these profits could be significantly reduced if marijuana possession were to be legalized.

2. Economic Crisis: We Can No Longer Afford an Ineffective Drug War

States from New York to California and in between are facing billion-dollar budget deficits. Governors and mayors are being forced to cut spending on everything from education to heath care, and are even shutting down popular prevention programs. Fortunately, a win-win solution for governors facing a budget crunch is apparent: Reform the drug laws and offer treatment instead of jail for nonviolent drug offenders. States could save hundreds of millions of dollars by doing away with these wasteful laws that lock up nonviolent people with drug convictions at a hefty price tag of $40,000 per year. We can’t afford these ineffective and inhumane laws anymore!

3. Obama and Drugs: Personal and Political

President-elect Obama has been refreshingly honest about his current and past drug use. Obama has been making news recently because of his struggles to give up cigarettes. He has written and talked about his marijuana and cocaine use when he was younger. He has never run from or made excuses about his drug use or habits. Like Obama, tens of millions of Americans have tried marijuana and so far they seem not to be holding his past drug use against him. Having someone in the White House who continues to grapple with relapses from his nicotine addiction will hopefully create more empathy between the executive branch and others trying to give up drug addictions.

On the policy front, President-elect Obama has made some good commitments during the campaign: He supports repealing the harshest drug sentences, removing federal funding bans on needle-exchange programs to reduce AIDS, ending federal raids on marijuana dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal, and supporting treatment alternatives for low-level drug offenses. President Obama will also have some key allies in the Democrat-controlled Senate and House. Senator Webb of Virgina has made our country’s prison overcrowding crisis — fueled by the drug war  — a top priority.

4. Our Veterans Are Self-medicating from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

People use drugs for both pleasure and pain; there is no doubt that much drug use is self-medication. One group that will be dealing with self-medication for a long time is U.S. soldiers returning from war. How does one deal with the pain of having friends die in one’s arms? What does killing other human beings do to one’s emotional stability? What is it like being away from family for a year or more? It’s not hard to imagine how such experiences could lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which in turn can lead to drug addiction, homelessness and even suicide.

It’s easy to demand that everyone “support the troops.” But if we’re going to talk the talk, we had better be ready to offer compassion and treatment to our brothers and sisters who need to heal from the damages of war. And once more people realize that incarceration for petty drug law violations is not an appropriate response to veterans’ suffering from addiction and depression, then hopefully people will question the logic of giving long jail sentences to others in our society who also could be self-medicating for pain and trauma in their own lives.

5. Incarceration Nation: When Being #1 is Not a Good Thing

America likes to promote its self as the “home of the free” but, unfortunately, we have the embarrassing honor of being known as the incarceration nation. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of the world’s prison population, incarcerating more of its citizens per capita than any other country in the world. We lock up more people on drug charges than Western Europe locks up for EVERYTHING and they have 100 million more people than we do. A government report released last month by theU.S. Justice Department found that 1 in 31 Americans was in prison or jail or on parole or probation last year.

The Time for Change Has Arrived

The world is in an intense time right now! We have wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan; millions of people are out of work; and a growing economic crisis is on everyone’s minds. We have a bloody war in Mexico and states across this country struggling to pay for the overcrowded prisons. But, in my heart, I truly believe there are many reasons to be optimistic and hopeful. We have a new president and millions of activated citizens who helped put him there. The pro-war idealogues have less credibility then ever before. This is a time to put big ideas on the table. We have to learn how to coexist with drugs. They have been around for thousands of years and will be around for thousands more. We are smart and compassionate people and we can figure out how to reduce the harms from both drugs and drug prohibition.

Tony Newman is communications director for the Drug Policy Alliance.

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