NEW STRATEGY FOR WAR ON DRUGS

As if it wasn't already clear that the U.S. has lost the War on Drugs,
yesterday the Justice Policy Institute released a report showing that
the U.S. now has 2 million of its citizens incarcerated.

It goes without saying that many of those violent convicted criminals
deserve to be there. But approximately 1.3 million of those
incarcerated are there for nonviolent offenses, about half of them for
low-level drug possession and distribution charges.

The costs of keeping such a large prison population are staggering:
$40 billion spent yearly to house those 2 million Americans in state
and federal prisons and jails. Across the country, the states spend
more than twice as much on corrections as they do on welfare programs.

Texas' statistics offer a microcosm of the nation's misplaced
priorities. The amount our state spent on new university construction
in the last 10 years amounts to only 3 percent of what we spent on
building new prisons during the same time period.

In 1998, Texas spent $99 million on adult substance abuse treatment --
compared to $334 million to incarcerate drug offenders. With
disparities like that, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Texas' prison
population has jumped from 41,000 to 150,000 in the last six years.

Texas' criminal justice policies turn juvenile delinquents into
hardened criminals, disproportionately target minorities and waste
limited budget resources on law enforcement, prosecution and
incarceration aimed at low-level drug offenders.

Money spent on substance abuse prevention and treatment pays far
greater dividends down the road than the expense of waging a domestic
war on one's own citizens. Sadly, this is a lesson elected officials
in Texas -- and across the nation -- have yet to learn.

Whether or not one favors decriminalization for drug offenses, it is
apparent that we must abandon our current national drug strategy
simply as a matter of sound public policy.