TREAT, DON'T JAIL, DRUG ADDICTS

The likelihood that the Allegheny County jail will exceed its 2,000-plus
capacity sometime next year - less than five years after the "grand
opening" - says more about the inadequacies of our criminal justice system
than the planning that went into the construction of this facility.

There is little consolation this jail jamming is not a local phenomenon -
but just our piece of the national puzzle of approximately 2 million
incarcerations in America's prisons. This calls for some new thinking at
both local and national levels. Inmates in our prisons run the gamut from
bloodthirsty murderers to the unfortunate vagrant who's in the wrong place
at the wrong time when caught in a police clean-streets sweep. One deserves
to be locked up. One does not.

Narcotics convictions are the most common cause shared by men and women who
are incarcerated in metropolitan America. Jail is fair justice for those
who traffic in drugs and in doing widen the web of addiction among adults
and children. But should drug abusers suffer the same consequence when in
reality they are the victims of their own folly?

Our criminal justice system needs to be more discerning. Drug abusers need
help, not incarceration. And with the jail recidivism rate at or near 80
percent, jailhouse drug rehabilitation obviously is no solution. Our judges
and prosecutors alone can't bring about reform of the system. They will
need the assistance of our state government in amending narcotic laws to
allow some experimentation as an alternative to jailing drug abusers.

With state cooperation, drug clinics could be established as a pilot
project in the metropolitan areas of Allegheny and Philadelphia counties.
These clinics would provide narcotics free of charge and with no questions
asked. The participants would be required to register as drug abusers and
to use the drugs on site in order to discourage resale of narcotics on the
street. State narcotics laws would have to be amended to assure the drug
users of immunity from prosecution.

Clinics alone won't solve society's problem with drug addiction - the
clientele would still be drug abusers. But at least no longer would it be
necessary for them to deal drugs themselves or commit other criminal acts
to obtain the money they need to purchase narcotics. And if it is their
choice to continue to risk their health and perhaps their lives by abusing
drugs, at least their decision will create no risk for law-abiding citizens
who otherwise are in jeopardy of drug-related crimes.

Free drug clinics have other advantages. Should this effort prove to be
successful, it would blow a hole in the illegal drug trade. What addict
will pay for narcotics when they are freely available?

The risk of contracting disease such as AIDS through the use of dirty
needles will be minimized.

The cost of incarcerating drug abusers in jail will decline.

Our crowded Criminal Court calendar should shrink, as will the caseloads in
the related criminal justice offices of the District Attorney, Public
Defender, Adult Probation, Bail Agency and Clerk of Courts.

Of course, in the hope some of these addicts can be turned away from their
chemical dependency through counseling, these clinics should include
adequate staffing by drug rehabilitation professionals. But while
counseling would be available to offer a way out for the victims of this
social malaise, participation would have to remain voluntary.

The alternative is to keep stumbling along the way we are now while the
prison population grows ever larger and drug addiction continues to
escalate in our community with all of its ugly ramifications.

Our society has been struggling with the scourge of drug addiction for more
than a third of this century. If we have learned anything it should be that
"locking 'em up and throwing away the key" isn't working. Our governor, our
legislators and our local officials are challenged now to make a new and
bolder approach.

Are they up to it? Are we?