HELP, DON'T INCARCERATE, ADDICTS

Seeing all the recent media attention to drug addiction and the
overcrowding of our prison system offers me some hope about what can be
done as an alternative to the cruel and unsuccessful methods and responses
to drug addiction in the past. Kicking troubled teenagers out of school and
locking up nonviolent drug offenders has been our society's way of avoiding
the problem, while consequently undereducating those kids and creating a
revolvingdoor prison system.

I am the mother of a 28yearold heroin addict. He started using drugs when
he was 13, and although there were a few attempts to intervene, he wasn't
ready or able to accept the reality of his disease. Along the way, he gave
up everything he lovedsurfing, tennis and the dream of being a sports
announcerall for his drugs. A bright student, he was kicked out of high
school when he was caught with marijuana. For the past seven years, he has
been a part of the criminal justice systemall drugrelated, nonviolent
offenses. I have watched him nearly die of an overdose, only to go right
back to the streets to use again.

He is now at Donovan State Prison. At the time he was arrested, I was
relieved. He was using heroin in a suicidal way and had stopped trying to
live. I was glad the phone call came from jail and not from the morgue. But
unfortunately, prison doesn't stop drug use. There are plenty of drugs
available behind bars; furthermore, punitive incarceration does nothing
toward rehabilitation. For months, prisoners sit in cells ("human storage"
is what my son calls it). By the time inmates are released, they are much
further from recovery. Now they are not merely addicts, they are exconvicts
as well.

Without help, it is almost a guarantee that they will be returning to prison.

We need to seek better ways to treat the illness of addiction. Studies show
that the crimes of 85% of all inmates in California prisons are drug or
alcoholrelated. The simplest, most logical and direct approach is to take
the money that is spent on incarceration and direct it instead into
mandated drug and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation.

Treatment works. Statistics show that addicts who are forced into treatment
reduce their drug use and dependency, their criminal behavior and therefore
their rate of relapse and return to prison.

We are losing the "war on drugs," which is based primarily on attempting to
interdict and reduce the supply. Currently, we are witnessing a sea change
of thinking, realizing that the only truly effective way of winning that
war is to reduce the demand. A few inprison programs are slowly appearing
to assess and divert firsttime addict offenders into effective treatment
programs. However, to quote San Diego Superior Court Judge Robert Coats:
"These are gestures, and we need a commitment to expand the gestures to
deal with the scale of the problem."

Gretchen B. Bergman Lives in Rancho Santa Fe