REHABILITATION BEST WAY TO FIGHT DRUGS

State and local prisons are overflowing with drug addicts and very
little is being done to rehabilitate them.

So when they get out, it's no surprise they head straight back to
their favorite fix. According to the American Society of Addiction
Medicine, 60 percent of untreated drug offenders are re-arrested
within a year of their release.

Even being behind bars doesn't stop usage. Prisoners admit they can
get just about any drug they want while they're in prison.

In a series on "Prisoners of Drugs, Addicts Behind Bars," News &
Advance staff writer Bill Freehling learned how easy it is to get
drugs while incarcerated.

One seven-time inmate told him that a typical scenario for securing
drugs works like this: an inmate sends money from his prison account
to his girlfriend. She buys his drug of choice and bribes a
correctional officer to take it inside.

Such an environment is not conducive to rehabilitation. As one federal
prisoner's mother said, "We are warehousing the problem. They're still
drug addicts when they get out."

She's absolutely right. Instead of helping solve a problem, the
current war on drugs is just costing the taxpayer a lot of money. In
Virginia, for example, it costs $22,000 a year to house an inmate.

Consider that the number of drug offenders in federal prisons has
soared from 3,384 in 1970 to 70,009 in 2002. That's an increase of
2,000 percent. More people are in federal prisons for drug offenses
than all other offenses combined.

If taking prisoners were an indication of success, it would be easy to
assume that the government is winning its war on drugs. But that's not
the case. One street-level hustler gets removed and another fills his
place without pause. The kingpins rarely get caught.

The problem is even worse in the federal system, where judges have
lost the discretion to treat each defendant on his or her own merit.
Mandatory sentencing laws are sending even the lowest-level drug users
to prison for a decade.

The only way to reduce a federal sentence is to cooperate with the
government. So those with some information can get their sentences
lowered, while those with no information - that is those least
culpable in the drug trade - have nothing to bargain with. What's
wrong with that picture?

Some federal judges are calling for a change in the law, saying the
current mandatory sentences are unjust and unfair. They're right. The
current laws are not working.

In Lynchburg, where police have made 7,000 drug arrests in the last 20
years, police say they're making little headway. "There is no getting
rid of it," said vice officer D.J. Riley. "We're out there so it
doesn't take over. We're just preventing chaos."

Vice officers say most Lynchburg residents are naive about the
widespread availability of drugs, which are not just an inner-city
problem. But it's easiest to make arrests in the open-air drug markets
in the city's East Division, where 45 percent of drug-related
incidents occurred last year.

That fact also creates a racial imbalance behind bars. Blacks made up
60 percent of the city's drug arrests in 2002, but whites made up 72
percent of admissions to the Arise detox center.

There's no question that curbing drug use is sound policy. Addiction
wastes lives - and destroys families. About half the criminals
committing major crimes test positive for illegal drugs. Street and
gang violence is often associated with battles to control drug
distribution in certain parts of a city.

But the current war on drugs is clearly failing. It's time to accept
that a certain percentage of the population will always be addicted to
some type of drug. But if there is any hope of rehabilitating addicts,
incarceration is not the answer.

One answer lies in special drug courts, which have proven to reduce
recidivism. According to a report by the Virginia Drug Court
Association, only 6 percent of drug court graduates return to prison
within three years, compared with 50 percent of those sent to prison
or put on probation.

Each drug court participant costs about $5,000 per year, a fraction of
the $22,000 prison bill.

There are now 23 drug courts in Virginia, and more than 1,000
nationwide. The first area court was established in Roanoke in 1995.
The courts are for nonviolent drug users, and such a court could
benefit the Lynchburg area. According to Lynchburg police, only 26
percent of drug arrests between 1984 and 1999 were for distribution.
The remaining 74 percent were for possession.

A pilot drug court is likely to start in the Amherst County Juvenile
and Domestic Relations Court in March. That would be a good
introduction to the notion that rehabilitation is more valuable to
society than punishing addicts.

But the court should soon expand to all ages and include Lynchburg,
where the bulk of the area's drug arrests occur. Such an approach can
save money and teach people to lead productive lives. It's past time
to make that the goal of the war on drugs.