PRISONS AREN'T ANSWER TO DRUG PROBLEM

10 Years Ago, Rehnquist Warned That These Cases Would Cripple Our
Courts

A front-page article in the Jan. 9 Register stated that "unless Iowa
curtails the growth of its prison population, the state will need to
build at least six news prisons by 2008. They would cost about $175
million to build and cost more than $285 million if the money were
borrowed. The number of our prisoners in Iowa jails will go to more
than 14,000 over the next decade, in which event Iowa will need to
construct the equivalent of six 750-bed prisons simply to maintain a
prison system operating at less than 140 percent of its designed capacity."

It seems to me that it might take a little more than our politicians'
wisdom, but a little less than a genius, to first analyze whom we are
putting in these prisons and why.

Roughly 60 percent of the inmates in Iowa prisons are those arrested
for drug offenses - about one-third of whom are there not for selling,
but for simple drug possession. About another third are there for
larceny, robbery and murder in order to get enough money to buy drugs.

We have an obsession that drug use can be eliminated or curtailed by
putting people in jail. And if this doesn't do it, we extend the jail
terms with mandatory sentences. New federal sentencing guidelines
provide that a person caught with crack cocaine, with no prior
convictions, can be given life in prison with no chance of parole.

Senator Charles Grassley 10 years ago in an essay in the Register
stated that a reinvigorated criminal system will attack the problem at
its point of attack against American society. He said it would take
back the streets and provide a drug-free America tomorrow. Well, this
is tomorrow. Even as moderate a person as Gov. Tom Vilsack wants to
give meth dealers life imprisonment. Grassley also stated that drug
users are enemies of society, echoing William Bennett, the first drug
czar, who made the statement as he was putting out a cigarette.

It isn't that we haven't been warned. Ten years ago, Chief Justice
William Rehnquist warned that drug cases were crippling our courts.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Irving of San Diego announced his
resignation: "It's a game I can't continue to play." He had sentenced
some 900 people for drug convictions, and he said, "Every time I put
somebody in jail, I get five more. There is so much money in it that
there is always somebody to fill their shoes."

Judge Myron H. Bright of the 8th Circuit, which includes Iowa, said,
"This is the time to call a halt to unnecessary and expensive costs of
putting people in prison for a long time based upon the mistaken
notion that such an effort will win the war on drugs."

According to the U.S. Customs Service, the war on drugs has not made a
dent in the total drug supply. Nor has filling our jails and
penitentiaries cut down on the number of drug dealers. There is
simply too much money involved.

Most important, all of the drug war - with its billions of dollars
spent, with its mandatory jail sentences, with its additional prisons
- - hasn't reduced the demand one whit. I don't for a moment advocate
or sympathize with the use of drugs. We haven't had a drug-free
society since the first human being dropped out of the trees and
nibbled on a betel nut. Why this is true, I don't know. Certainly it
must be addressed and up a point it can be, but not by the clumsy
method of carting everyone off to jail. As we are beginning to find,
we don't have enough jails.

Of the billions of dollars we've spent on the drug war, 70 percent
goes for police arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment. Only 30
percent is spent on education and treatment. Not too long ago, an
attempt was made in Congress to reverse this percentage and spend 70
percent for education and treatment. It was defeated. Ask your
representatives in Washington how they voted on this one.

The London Economist raised the question, "How long will the American
people permit this bloody and useless war to continue?" The answer, I
think, is just as long as the people fall for the propaganda that
decriminalizing drugs will make zombies of us a and just as long as
they fall for the political propaganda that drug usage can be
controlled or eliminated by force.

Refreshingly, the scene is changing a little. Federal drug czar
Barry McCaffrey has made at least a 90-degree turn from the Bennett
line by publicly stating that the drug answer is not to see how many
people we can lock up.

And the splendid Jan. 10 essay by U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt on
senseless sentencing is particularly rewarding. Perhaps, as Freud
observed, "The voice of the intellect is soft, but
persistent."

DAVID M. ELDERKIN, Cedar Rapids attorney.