A WELCOME NEW FOCUS ON DRUG-ABUSE TREATMENT

Without Effective Rehabilitation Programs,Many Of Virginia's Ex-Cons
Return To Both Their Old Habits -- Drugs And Crime.

Gov. Jim Gilmore highlighted a crackdown on drug "kingpins" last week, but
his plans to significantly expand treatment programs for substance abusers
could
prove to be a far more effective drug-crime-prevention initiative.

After all, it's the folks on the demand side of the equation who make
the supply side such a lucrative business for big-time drug dealers --
and there are a lot more people who will steal, mug, even kill to
support their drug habits than there are kingpins.

Gilmore is to be commended for focusing on the need for better
treatment and rehabilitation programs for drug offenders, in and out
of prison.

In proposing mandatory treatment for first-time offenders, he could
prevent many drug-related crimes that have been increasing all the
while that other types of crime have been reduced. Last year, for
instance, there were about three times more drug arrests than for all
violent offenses by adults and juveniles.

And in proposing to increase treatment programs for substance abusers
in the state's corrections system and to expand transitional treatment
programs as they are released to communities, Gilmore can
substantially reduce the odds that those inmates will quickly return
to both drugs and crime.

Will his proposals be costly? Yes. Even though first-time offenders
who can afford to do so would have to pay for the treatment the state
would mandate, the overall drug-treatment component of the Gilmore
initiative will cost about $26 million in the next two years -- about
half of the total he wants to spend on a new war on drugs in Virginia.

But it is both compassionate and fiscally responsible to help those
who've gotten hooked on drugs to become unhooked and to become
productive, law-abiding citizens -- without throwing them in prison.
Certainly, taxpayers have not been well-served by simply locking up
all drug offenders, by denying treatment while they are behind bars,
and then turning them back on the streets to commit new drug-related
crimes.

Such "warehousing" of inmates with substance-abuse problems -- and by
some estimates nearly 80 percent of those in Virginia's corrections
system have some kind of substance-abuse problem -- has been condoned
for too long as past governors and legislatures have poured money into
concrete to build new prisons but axed funds for treatment and
rehabilitation time and time again.

It's to Gilmore's credit that he is trying to break that
mold.