Dear Washington Post

You published a recent exchange between David Lewis and the Partnership for
a Drug Free America, in which the Partnership claimed that the average
federal prisoner on drug-related charges had been connected to enormous
quantities of either heroin, cocaine, or marijuana, while Dr. Lewis said
rather these inmates were victims of a disease requiring treatment.

In favor of Dr. Lewis's point of view, I work for the Public Defender's
office in Morris County New Jersey, and my criminal clients are all
defendants on drug charges. My clients are invariably committing additional
crimes (prostitution, carrying drugs) solely for the purpose of obtaining
drugs. To have me as their counsel, they are generally homeless or living
with others, with no income and assets.

When the prosecutor yells at me, "Stanton, you're always claiming that all
of your clients are victims," I reply, "Bob, get me some of those drug
dealers as clients who can pay some real dough, and I'll stop making that
complaint."

On the other hand, my clients are not suitable candidates for regular drug
treatment or NA; their lives are simply too fragmented and out of control
(drugs aside) for them to participate regularly in such formal settings.
They need a lot of help prior to getting into drug treatment. One of my
clients, a man over sixty, I keep insisting should visit a doctor -- he
looks like death warmed over -- which is an enormous project in itself which
neither I nor the Prosecutor's Office can make happen.

As to mothers (parents) losing their children, I am learning that this is a
growth industry as well. I deal with parents (generally mothers) who have
come under the spell of NJDYFS (New Jersey Department of Youth and Family
Services). After that happens, in my experience, you are doomed.

These people love their children and their children love them. In my recent
cases they have not abused their children nor are they substance abusers.
Instead, due to charges that their spouses or lovers have abused their
children, or that they MAY abuse them (because of previous charges against
the lovers), combined with a general threadbare existence (they've been
homeless or living in shelters) DYFS becomes involved with the families.
Generally, the State provides family services and therapy for the parents,
which in my experience never change the basic dynamics of the home, and
which thus never serve to remedy the problems for which the DYFS was called
in the first place. Eventually, in an inexorable process, the state
intervenes to remove the children from the home.

The readiness of the State to remove children from the home goes in cycles.
We are now in a hair-trigger mode for such removal. There is no percentage
for DYFS to leave children in the home -- the risks for public workers are
solely that children will be found to be sexually abused, in which case the
media and governor will hang the agency and case workers out to dry.

Thus, the court always accepts the State's recommendations for the family,
as presented by the Assistant Attorney General. He is the God in the
situation. In my experience it is impossible to get an order to show cause
(which is the State's case and which, after it is signed by the court,
becomes an order dictating the fate of the family) modified in even the
slightest way. The State will have what the State wants. I have tried
appealing these orders, but my appeals are rejected without comment by the
appellate division.

I am thus present as window-dressing, because families are required to have
an attorney before their fates are sealed. Although I have informed the
court that I am a licensed psychologist in New Jersey, the court will no
sooner take any inputs from me than from a convicted child molester.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the legislature, worried that too many children
are being returned to unsuitable families, is presenting legislation to make
removal of the families easier, harder to appeal, and more automatic. But,
the only thing is, I have yet to find a State worker who thinks that
breaking these families up and sending to children to foster homes is a boon
for the children. But, then, at least it's off their hands, and into someone
else's!

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"