Drug Of Choice

GENERAL ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE TO HOLD HEARING ON GRAND JURY REPORT
RECOMMENDING LEGAL DISTRIBUTION OF NARCOTICS

The Maryland General Assembly's Special Committee on Substance Abuse will
hold a hearing in early July based on the findings of a 2003 Baltimore City
Grand Jury Report that suggests new ways for the justice system to deal
with drug-addicted defendants--including legal distribution of controlled
substances. The hearing comes only two months after Gov. Robert Ehrlich
became the nation's first Republican governor to sign a medical-marijuana
bill into law. The committee, chaired by Sen. Ralph Hughes (D-40th), will
consider the grand jury's findings and recommendations, as well as the
opinions of those both for and against drug reform, to determine the need
for new legislation and programs to handle drug-related crime and problems.
Among other things, the grand jury--made up of 23 Baltimore
residents--recommended providing comprehensive care for substance abusers,
diverting drug-addicted individuals to treatment rather than incarceration,
making use of criminal citations rather than arrests for certain crimes,
and exploring the idea of legal, regulated distribution of narcotics.

Bill Piper, associate director of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington,
says that attitudes toward the drug problem are changing. "We're finding
that policy-makers are stuck on the drug-war policy, but ballot measures
across the country are showing that the people are not," he says.

Last year more than 50 percent of all criminal cases in Baltimore were for
felony narcotics violations. As a result, Maryland Circuit Court Judge
Edward Hargadon assembled the grand jury in January to asses the various
substance-abuse treatment options available and to suggest ways that the
courts could better assist defendants with drug problems. The jury's
findings are based on information gathered from visits with law-enforcement
agencies, tours of state penitentiaries and detention centers, and
interviews with recovering addicts and medical specialists. The report says
that a continuum of care would help recovering addicts become productive
members of society by providing treatment to the whole individual rather
than detoxification alone. The report indicates that placing abusers in
therapeutic communities would help them recover from addiction and avoid
recidivism. Statistics included in the report to support that argument say
that those who choose treatment over jail are more successful at becoming
drug-free and are two-thirds less likely to be arrested for another crime.

Jury members also recommended diverting drug users to mandatory treatment
programs, which would significantly decrease the number of nonviolent
offenders in the prison system, thereby freeing up millions of dollars to
pay for treatment, prevention, and education programs.

"Drug addiction is an illness," says Maurice Smith, executive program
director of Second Chance Ministries in Baltimore. Smith has created his
own drug-treatment program that focuses on treatment through the
transformation of thought processes in the addicted. "[Addiction] requires
different approaches to bring an individual into a holistic being," he
says. "Incarcerating is not the answer--we will never have enough police or
money to deal with the amount of people coming into the system."

Piper says that Americans should take a more "European" stance on drug use.
"Europeans look at drugs as a public-health problem as opposed to here
where drug abuse is seen as a moral problem," he says. " Treatment is more
cost effective than incarceration. Prison doesn't cure drug addiction."

Perhaps the most controversial of the jury's recommendations is its support
of the licensed distribution of drugs for personal use to those who are
already addicted. "Conventional modes of attacking the drug problem simply
aren't working," the report says. "The distribution of drugs is so
profitable, we are fighting the battle with one arm tied behind our backs."
This is a far cry from the findings of a 1995 Baltimore grand jury report
that advocated for the decriminalization of marijuana but found that
legalizing other illicit substances would be unacceptable. "Legalization is
not an acceptable solution," that report noted. "American society is one of
excess. Making drugs available the way that alcohol was legalized and
distributed after Prohibition would probably exacerbate addictions."

But this year's grand jury agreed that regulated distribution of illegal
drugs would reduce the violence associated with drug dealing by taking the
profit out of the business. The report stresses that the members of the
jury do not endorse drug use or legalization, but that they are trying to
realistically deal with addiction as a progressive illness. They recommend
that the government regulate illegal drugs as it does prescription drugs or
methadone. Unlicensed distribution of the drugs would still be illegal.

"There are already government-run, publicly supported, or taxes programs
that promote activities that some citizens might consider morally
inappropriate, such as gambling (Lotto), drinking (alcohol), and smoking
(tobacco)," the justification for this recommendation reads. "By using this
sort of intervention, the government offered a control of the chaos
associated with illegal activities, such as numbers running and bootlegging."

When asked what he thought of this approach to curbing the drug epidemic,
Second Chance Ministries' Smith was blunt: "I don't think that [regulated
distribution] is a good idea," he says. " I don't think that we should take
up the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em-type attitude. We need to focus on
trying to strengthen the individual."

When contacted at his office for information on how the General Assembly's
Committee on Substance Abuse plans to handle the report next month, Sen.
Hughes declined to comment, pending the committee's review of the subject.