OUR FAILING ECONOMY'S A BOON TO DRUG-LAW REFORMERS

Gregoire's Crafting A Bill, As Part Of Her Sweeping Cost-Cutting
Plan, That Would Further Reduce Drug Sentences.

It took two years of political warfare before the state Legislature
managed to pass a bill in 2002 that reduced prison sentences for drug
offenders by as much as two-thirds, and offered treatment instead of
incarceration in some cases. The fight drew media attention as
conservative legislators dug in their heels. "I'm not willing to go
there," Sen. Pam Roach (R-Auburn) was quoted as saying in The Seattle Times.

What a difference a collapsing economy makes.

As the legislative session got underway last week, Gov. Christine
Gregoire began crafting a bill that would further reduce drug
sentences as part of her sweeping cost-cutting plan. Sentences would
be cut by 25 percent for virtually all drug crimes, says John Lane,
the Governor's public safety policy advisor. Only the most serious,
"Level III" offenses (such as involving a minor in drug-dealing)
would be untouched. In fiscal 2008, just 95 of nearly 8,000 drug
offenses were Level III, according to state figures. Gregoire isn't
motivated by a desire to reform our drug laws, says Lane, but rather
by sheer economics.

So far, the media's barely taken notice of the proposal, lost as it
is among all the drastic cuts in the Governor's budget. Nor has there
been an outcry in the Legislature, although Sen. Mike Carrell
(R-Lakewood) says he'll take a close look at it. Roach declined to be
interviewed on the subject, saying through an aide that she's working
on other things.

Law enforcement groups aren't fighting the move either. "We would
just as soon not see these cuts," says Don Pierce, executive director
of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. "But we
understand that given the current crisis, this is the best place to make them."

While liberal groups have fought for years for more lenient drug
policies, our state's financial woes are helping accomplish what
their arguments alone could not. This is true at the county level as
well. Faced with a $5 million budget cut to his office, King County
Prosecutor Dan Satterberg in October started kicking felony cases
involving less than three grams of narcotics down to District Court,
where they are prosecuted as misdemeanors. He says the move affects
two-thirds of his caseload.

Meanwhile, the King County jail is already nearly full, and the
county has said it will no longer have room for misdemeanor prisoners
from the cities as of 2012. So Seattle and several suburban cities
have started planning to build a new multimillion-dollar jail of their own.

"That process got people thinking: How big does this new facility
really need to be?" says council member Tim Burgess. The city has
already reduced its jail population by 40 percent in the past 10
years through various alternatives to incarceration, like electronic
monitoring, and through Community Court, which channels low-level
offenders into social service programs rather than jail. Burgess says
council members started asking whether the jail population could be
further reduced using more of the same strategies.

Next month, a Council-convened advisory group will begin considering
alternatives to incarceration for drug offenders. Among the
participants: Satterberg, Seattle Police Department Chief Gil
Kerlikowske, City Attorney Tom Carr, The Defender Association's Lisa
Daugaard, and State Rep. Roger Goodman (D-Kirkland). "People who
don't normally think of themselves as having much in common are
really starting to come together," Daugaard says.

Goodman, for instance, has worked for many years on a project of the
King County Bar that advocates drug legalization. That's not a
position favored by law enforcement.

Still, even the police have put new energy into searching for
alternatives to arrest and prosecution.

"There's been a sea change in attitude," says council member Nick Licata.

Capt. Mike Meehan, head of the SPD's narcotics section, calls it more
of an "evolution."

In the next few months, Meehan says, the department plans to launch a
pilot project modeled on a program in High Point, North Carolina.
Police there bring young people who could be arrested on drug charges
into their precincts. "In one room, all the evidence of the case is
presented," Meehan says. A person is told: "We can arrest you--but we
don't want to do that." Then that person is led to another room,
where police have assembled family, friends, teachers, and community
members. Police present a choice: get arrested or straighten up with
the help of those in the room. Many choose option B, according to
Meehan and studies of the program.

This is among the kind of programs that the city might expand,
according to Burgess. One move that is not on the table, however, is
de facto legalization of hard drugs, along the lines of a 2003
initiative that made marijuana possession the lowest priority of the
Seattle police. "If we start talking in those terms," says Burgess, a
former cop, "it is going to push the buttons of some people and will
really derail the effort."

City Attorney Carr's buttons are already slightly indented. "Don't
you think we should be driven by best practices and science and not
what it costs to build a new jail?" he asks. Like many in law
enforcement, he argues that without arrest and jail hanging over
people's heads, they don't have the incentive to change their lives.
And cops might lose their incentive to arrest people if they know
that it doesn't lead to meaningful jail time. He didn't know enough
about the Governor's plans to comment on them.

Carr declares himself a big believer in treatment for drug users—once
they've been arrested. He has been trying to establish something akin
to the county's Drug Court on a municipal level. He says he would
call it "Treatment Court" and expand it to alcoholics as well as drug
users. "The problem is the beds," he says. There aren't enough at
existing treatment facilities, and the city doesn't have funds to pay
for new ones.

That situation is not going to be helped by Gregoire's budget, which
cuts $2 million for treatment services offered through drug courts
around the state. In King County, fewer people will have access to
the services that remain because most will go through District Court
rather than Drug Court. "My regret is that I don't have the resources
to offer those people treatment," Satterberg says.

As regards liberalizing drug laws in favor of health care rather than
punishment, we seem to be moving both one step closer and one step further away.