PUSHING REHAB OVER PRISON

Study after study has concluded that treatment is the most effective weapon
against drug abuse.

A RAND Corp. study, for example, revealed that treatment of heavy drug users
reduces serious crime against people and property 15 times more than tough
mandatory sentences.

A 1998 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University found that treatment instead of prison saves about
$20,000 per person per year.

And after three years as the director of national drug policy, Barry R.
McCaffrey has concluded that treatment is the best way to reduce drug use.

About 10 years ago, some judges and prosecutors, frustrated with the
revolving door justice of sending addicts to prison over and over again,
started what we now call drug courts. These courts shift drug policy from
punishment to treatment.

Criminal charges against the nonviolent drug offenders are dropped if the
offender successfully completes drug treatment. Offenders who fail to live
up to their treatment commitment have their charges reinstated, are brought
to trial and sentenced as criminals.

In the early 1990s, there were only a handful of drug courts. Now we have
600 nationwide. They have sent more than 90,000 people to drug treatment.

According to the federal General Accounting Office (GAO), 70 percent of
those sent to drug courts successfully complete treatment. The GAO also
found that drug users sent to prison instead of treatment are four times
more likely to commit another drug crime within five years.

Baltimore City's drug court is 5 years old. In 1996, its first evaluation
found that 23 percent of the offenders who went through the drug court were
arrested for new crimes, as opposed to 28 percent of those on probation.

Hagerstown's drug court has recorded a recidivism rate for inmates who
successfully complete its treatment program of just 22 percent.

Given the evidence that treatment is more effective than prison in fighting
drug abuse and drug crime and the success rate of drug courts that
incorporate that principle, one would think the focus of anti-drug funds
would shift to treatment. Unfortunately, the bulk of it still goes to law
enforcement and incarceration.

While the Clinton administration has increased treatment funding 17 percent,
about 65 percent of the $18 billion budget to fight drugs goes to
enforcement and interdiction. Only $3 billion is directed to treatment.

Maryland's recent allocation of $10 million a year for 10 years to substance
abuse programs from Maryland's $4.4 billion tobacco settlement is certainly
positive.

I hope some of that money will be used to expand the drug court philosophy
of less imprisonment and more treatment.

The aim is not to coddle drug offenders, but to break the drug use and drug
crime cycle.

Carolyn Krysiak Baltimore

The writer represents the 46th Legislative District in Maryland's House of
Delegates.

[The following contact information was supplied by the Newshawk]

Delegate Carolyn Krysiak Lowe House Office Building, Room 316 84 College
Ave. Annapolis, MD 21401 - 1991 (410) 841-3303 1-800-492-7122, ext. 3303
(toll free) e-mail: [3]carolyn_krysiak@house.state.md.us