A JUDGE BRINGS SOME SENSE TO THE DRUG ISSUE

New York, so often the leader of the nation, is putting together solutions
to drug problems that exhibit a combination of intelligence, common sense
and close observation.

Those qualities are almost never brought to the table when drug abuse is the
issue because we are a nation that has had to learn, drug by drug, what we
are talking about.

We accept the idea that the drug called alcohol cannot be made illegal
because people are going to drink whether or not it is a crime. It took
almost 15 years of lawlessness during the Prohibition era to learn that
fact, which meant the Mafia was bankrolled by the sale of all the illegal
booze. So we paid a high price for that prudishness.

Now we are going through much the same kind of Prohibition-style thinking
about tobacco. At the same time, it has been learned that those in the trade
have put addictive elements into their product with the intention of getting
their customers hooked. This has led to enormous lawsuits and a lot of
governmental sanctimoniousness — although not out of proportion to what
those tobacco bigwigs were doing.

I find it disingenuous for smokers to sue because they have inhaled two or
three packs of cigarettes a day for years and are now very ill or about to
die. At the same time, Big Tobacco deserves the foot that has been pushed
into its backside for the last few years. Sometimes, unfair things are
actually fair.

As for other drugs, we are moving away from the policies that have turned
our penal institutions into overcrowded chattel compounds. As for me, I
would prefer that drugs be legalized and taxed and the tax money used to
make sure that we have the very finest rehabilitation programs in the world.
That would destroy the trade as a multibillion-dollar shadow business.

Legalization also would put a good many of those kids who get hooked on the
drug trade's fast and big money right back where they should be — in school.
No one is interested in that solution. Still, we are starting to get much
closer to the realities of our moment.

Too many of those behind bars are there because their addictions brought
them into conflict with the law, not because they hit somebody on the head
or committed any other act of violence. They like to get high, or they get
high to avoid the pain of drug withdrawal. They land behind bars for their
addiction or for such bloodless crimes as burglary.

Keeping them locked up means a $650 million annual tab for New York. To
change this, Chief Judge Judith Kaye has ordered the courts of this state to
offer those guilty of nonviolent drug-related crimes the choice of going
into a rehabilitation program for two years or heading for the slammer.

The success rate for those who go into drug programs rather than prison is
70%. Since drug-related crimes have increased the prison population by 400%
over the last 20 years, this approach makes more than a little sense.

This is another impressive example of how well things can go if business
principles are applied to politics and law. Kaye understands the same thing
any first-class CEO does: Successful facts should determine policy, not
good-sounding ideology. Let us hope more and more follow her example. For
nonviolent addicts, treatment, not jail.