IF LEGALIZATION WINS, ADDICTS WILL LOSE

Just as our criminal-justice system is beginning to build an effective
treatment-oriented system for drug offenders, advocates are seeking to
decriminalize these offenses.

While well-meaning, such a "reform" would mean the loss of one of the
most effective means we have to break the cycle of drugs, addiction
and crime.

Drug-possession offense should not result in a jail term, and drug
addiction must be treated for what it is -- a chronic, relapsing
disorder. Nonetheless, the criminal-justice system must still play a
significant role by using its power -- including the threat of jail
time -- to make treatment successful.

Drug use is not a "victimless crime," and we have a strong community
interest in fighting drug addiction.

Over half of criminal behavior nationally is committed by individuals
under the influence of drugs, according to studies by the National
Institute of Justice. And 80 percent of the men and women behind bars
are addicted. People who live in households where drugs are used are
11 times as likely to be killed as those living in drug-free
households. Drug abuse in a home increases a woman's risk of being
killed by a close relative by 28 times. And the average individual
with severe addiction commits nearly 63 crimes a year.

Using the power of the criminal courts to force drug offenders into
treatment is an effective means of reducing crime and other adverse
effects of drug addiction. These programs break the cycle of drugs and
crime, restore addicts as productive members of society, and save us
hundreds of millions of dollars in prison and health care costs.

The idea is simple: Use the power of criminal courts to induce
non-violent offenders into treatment, and keep them in treatment until
they are successful in defeating their addiction.

Sadly, for all too many, addiction is too strong for a purely
voluntary treatment to work. To remedy this problem, criminal courts
can use a "carrot and stick" approach -- using drug testing, graduated
sanctions and treatment to induce offenders to take treatment seriously.

These forced treatment programs work. They are far more successful
than voluntary programs both in inducing offenders to participate in
treatment and in retaining offenders in treatment. For example, in
Brooklyn, the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison program was able to
retain 64 percent in drug treatment -- at least two times higher than
the retention rate for most voluntary residential treatment programs.

Moreover, after one year, offenders who were forced into treatment had
less than half the arrest rate of drug offenders sent to prison. As a
result of this success, New York will be using this closely monitored
treatment approach for all non-violent offenders with drug problems.

Similarly, drug courts have also shown great success. There are now
about 600 drug courts in operation, with drug courts located in every
state, including Arizona. Using drug testing, strict monitoring,
treatment and graduated sanctions, drug courts offer non-violent
offenders the hope of a dismissal of charges if they successfully
complete drug treatment.

During the program, graduated sanctions (which may include a few days
of jail time) are used to punish offenders who test positive for drugs
or who otherwise fail to participate in treatment. This combination of
positive and negative incentives works. Every study of drug court
programs has found high retention rates, low rearrest rates and lower
drug use. Participants in these programs have arrest and drug-use
rates far lower than similar offenders who do not participate in the
program.

Drug court participants named close supervision and encouragement by
judges, ongoing monitoring of their drug use, and intense treatment as
the three factors critical to their success in beating drug addiction.

Unfortunately, this effective approach to defeating drug addiction
would be lost if drugs were decriminalized. Decriminalization will
unnecessarily and cruelly condemn millions of addicts who are not
successful in voluntary programs to continued addiction, and the
result will be more death, crime and human misery.

Instead of taking the self-destructive act of decriminalization, we
should focus on what is really needed to improve drug policy:

* More treatment resources in our community so that quality treatment
is available to all who need it.

* More treatment programs -- including post-incarceration assistance
- -- for the vast majority of prisoners in the Arizona corrections
system who are addicted.

* An increased focus of our criminal justice system on coerced and
supervised treatment, not incarceration, of non-violent drug users.