DRUG-FREE ZONES INEFFECTIVE

It's almost a given that when a non-profit organization does a study
the aim is to create the perception of a crises, followed by a
request for more money from taxpayers, funneled first through the
U.S. Treasury.

Yet sometimes such studies can provide useful information, such as
one done by the the Drug Policy Alliance and the Justice Policy
Institute, two non-profit groups that advocate reducing penalties for
non-violent drug crimes.

The study focused on so-called drug-free school zones, which stiffen
penalties for drug crimes committed within their boundaries. These
zones usually extend 1,000 feet in all directions from a school,
although in some cases they extend three miles.

As with nearly all laws, legislation creating drug-free zones has
undergone tinkering over the years, most often in the form of
expanding zones of coverage, to include such places as public
housing, parks, playgrounds, shopping malls and churches.

At any rate, the study done by the two non-profits concluded that
drug-free school zones don't discourage drug dealing on school grounds.

In New Jersey, which enacted a drug-free zone law in 1987, arrests
near schools actually rose from 8,000 in 1993 to 14,000 in 2002,
according to the state Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing.

Some news reports indicate that legislatures in some states are way
ahead of the study and are considering laws shrinking the size of the zones.

Perhaps they should be reduced, or eliminated, but strangely it seems
that the ones advocating for shrinkage are doing so because they see
drug-free zones as tending to discriminate against minority drug
dealers, reasoning that drug dealers in cities, who are more likely
to be minorities, are punished more severely that their suburban and
rural counterparts.

Drug-free zones are not only fewer and farther apart in the suburbs,
but typically houses and other establishments are usually farther
from schools. In cities, drug dealers may be forced to sell in a
drug-free zone, because there is nowhere else available.

Could the answer be to provide for monitored zones where dealers can
hawk their wares without fear of penalty?