JUDICIAL OVERDOSE: 'DRUG-FREE ZONES' TAKE IN TOO MUCH TERRITORY

The drug war is its own drug. You start with a little, and pretty
soon you just need more, and more, until it has consumed your life.

Unable to stem the demand for illegal drugs, and unwilling to fully
fund workable alternatives such as treatment and drug courts,
lawmakers around the country have become addicted to applying
criminal justice solutions to a public health problem.

The result has been similar to the individual who is disappointed to
find that casual use of a softish drug hasn't solved all of his
problems so, instead of getting clean, he moves on to larger amounts
and/or harder drugs.

In Utah, as in other states, one step up the crack-down ladder was
the idea of the "drug-free zone." The law draws a circle, usually
with a 1,000-foot radius, around a school and adds extra penalties
for those caught peddling drugs within that area. The reasonable idea
is to come down harder on the scum who sell dangerous drugs to school
children than on those who deal to, say, fellow members of their
motorcycle gang.

Utah, though, doesn't just draw such circles around schools and
churches. It applies the stiffer penalties - the first-degree felony
standard more commonly applied to killers and rapists - to drug
crimes committed within 1,000 feet of shopping centers, parks,
shopping malls, sports facilities and parking lots.

But it can be difficult to find a part of any town that isn't that
close to one of those uses. Thus there are many more long - and, to
the taxpayers, expensive - prison terms for minor offenders who were
never even accused of pushing drugs to children.

And, according to current and former members of the Utah Board of
Pardons and Parole, it has also encouraged law enforcement agencies
to deliberately stage their stings and undercover buys within those
zones. That gives them a hammer to elicit guilty pleas out of
suspects who might have beat the rap if they had gone to trial, but
who didn't want to risk first-degree sentences that, in theory, could
stretch into life in prison.

The parole board and the Utah Sentencing Commission have seen that
this particular anti-drug law amounts to a judicial overdose, and
they are asking the Legislature to ease up. That's exactly what it should do.