RIDDING SOCIETY OF DRUG ABUSE

Alternative sentencing is not a new concept. It has been tried with varying
degrees of success by courts nationwide in recent years.

The unique thing about a Utah program being tried in Davis and Weber
counties, however, is that it is aimed solely at drug offenders who violate
their paroles. Rather than automatically sending them to prison, the
program gives them treatment for their addictions while it hands out
sentences that include community service or a few days in the local county
jail, which is far less intensive than the state penitentiary. In one
recent case, a judge ordered violators to write essays on the importance of
drug treatment.

As the administrative coordinator for the Board of Pardons and Parole said,
the program throws open the "old debate over whether drug use is a sickness
or a crime." Frankly, it can be both. While there is nothing wrong with the
state seeking alternatives that actually persuade drug users to quit, it
cannot afford to begin sending a message that drug abuse is anything less
than a crime that menaces society.

Illegal drugs cause harm. Even the drug users who are not themselves
violent are implicitly connected with the violence and harm that
accompanies the drug from its manufacture to the moment it reaches their
hands. This harm ranges from the poverty that spreads through Third World
countries, where cartels force farmland to be used for drug-related crops
rather than food, to the violent gang culture that invades many U.S. cities.

In addition, the drugs cause irreparable harm to their users, and these
often are young people enticed with lies. To decriminalize such a scourge
would be an outrage. The same could be said for anything that sends a
message to potential users that the crime carries no real punishment.

However, it is true that society gains little from throwing nonviolent drug
users into a cell surrounded by hardened criminals. The focus ought to be
on rehabilitation. Unfortunately, that often is much easier to say than to
do. Many users defy rehabilitation. No program can succeed unless it can
spark a will to change.

Alternative sentences often try to induce this change through shame or
through the tonic of service. Both can work well under the right
circumstances. But there have been some notable failures. Usually, these
are associated with attempts to shame.

For example, in St. George a few years ago, a judge ordered a 22-year-old
man to post a sign outside his house announcing he was a convicted drug
dealer. This was added onto a sentence of 36 months probation. His parents
were so embarrassed by the sign that they kicked him out of their house.

In Wilkesboro, N.C., a judge ordered a woman who had killed someone in a
drunken-driving accident to parade around the courthouse for an hour at a
time with a sign reading, "I am a convicted drunk driver, and as a result I
took a life."

Neither sentence was likely to return the abuser to productive use in
society. Nor, for that matter, is a sentence to write an essay. However,
judges ought to be free to try such things.

Nearly a quarter of all Utah prisoners today are incarcerated for drug
crimes. Virtually all of them will be released some day. If the pilot
program in Weber and Davis counties can successfully keep these people from
returning to their crimes, it ought to be expanded. But it should be done
carefully so as not to send the wrong message.