SMART-ON-CRIME

First-Time Drug Offenders Need a Chance at Recovery

Perhaps the nation's almost irrational, utterly closed-minded view of
how to deal with illegal substances and drug offenders is beginning to
become a little more enlightened.

There's evidence of that out of Austin, of all places.

Gov. Rick Perry recently signed into law a bill that requires
first-time drug offenders convicted of the lowest-level drug
possession offenses to submit to probation with mandatory treatment
programs that reduce recidivism, according to information on the
action from the NAACP National Voters Fund and the Texas American
Civil Liberties Union.

This represents a turn-around of sorts for a Legislature that in the
past has simply thrown anyone involved with drugs into jail and prison
with the intention of tossing the key into the cotton patch.

In other words, we've really gone overboard in the past for minor
offenders.

And the result has been the need to build new prisons and expand old
ones. Still, prisons are overcrowded, jails require expansion. And
increasing amounts of public money go to the operation of facilities
to warehouse individuals who arguably hurt no one but themselves.

Texas has more prisoners than any other state.

Counting state and local tax monies, we ranked 10th among the states
in total prison spending in 2001. (We ranked 26th in spending on education.)

The NAACP and ACLU figure that the law will save Texas $30 million in
the 2004-05 biennium, and more than $115 million during the first five
years. Why? Because one of five people in Texas prisons is in the
slammer on a drug offense, and "thousands are first-time offenders
caught with only the smallest quantities of drugs - less than the
contents of a Sweet-n-Low packet," according to the two
organizations.

Not only will the legislation save money. But, it also might save
lives.

"Today, every time we put a kid in prison for a first, low-level drug
possession offense, we spend a lot of taxpayers' dollars and tear one
more family apart," Angela Arboleda of the National Council of La Raza
is quoted as saying. "And we still haven't done anything about the
kid's drug problem."

The Rev. Robert Jefferson of the Houston Ministers Against Crime
agrees. He's quoted as saying, "We know from first-hand experience
that treatment programs are the best way to get people to change their
behavior, because they give people the tools they need to take control
of their lives."

Claude Foster, who was an educator in Wichita Falls for a number of
years and president of the local NAACP chapter, is now with the NAACP
National Voters Fund, and he has this to say about the measure: "The
time has come for smart-on-crime policies that protect public safety
while saving our state money. First-time drug offenders need a chance
to recover from their addiction so they can become productive members
of our community."

This response to overzealous drug laws is a reasonable approach to a
social problem that will not go away just because we put people in
lock-up.