REHAB: LET HEALTH DRIVE POLICY ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON - Noelle Bush, the 25-year-old daughter of the governor of
Florida and niece of the president of the United States, was already in a
drug rehab program when she was found with a one-gram rock of crack cocaine
in her shoe.

The judge who sent her to rehab in the first place found her in contempt of
court for the latest offense.

Contempt of court? At a time when America's prisons are bursting with drug
offenders who are less well-connected? When crack abusers in particular are
languishing under mandatory sentences? I say we ought to make an example of
this young woman.

No, I don't mean she should be hauled off in irons to do hard time in
prison. I think she should be - well, sent back to rehab.

My problem with Noelle Bush is not that she should be treated the way so
many other drug-abusers are treated, but that these luckless others should
be treated after her example.

Most Americans would agree - up to a point. We think some combination of
probation and rehabilitation makes sense for first-time drug offenders
whose only harm is to themselves - no robberies, no driving under the
influence, no stealing.

But what if these first-timers violate their rehabilitation (as Bush did,
when she was diverted to a special drug court after her arrest last January
on charges of using a false prescription to try to buy Xanax)? She was sent
to jail for three days in July when she was found with an unauthorized
prescription drug. Now the crack charge. Isn't it time the Florida courts
showed her they're serious?

The question presupposes that drug offenders who violate the rules of their
treatment aren't serious - that they agree to treatment merely to avoid
going to prison. But suppose the violations are tokens not so much of
contempt as of the power of the addiction? Think about Darryl Strawberry or
all of those people who blow one break after another, who lose jobs,
status, family, even their lives because they won't - or can't - leave
drugs alone. How many times should we avoid throwing such people in jail
for their violations of the law?

"As long as it takes to get them well," says Ethan Nadelmann, the executive
director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

"No way she belongs in a jail cell, as long as she hasn't committed an
offense against another person," he said.

"Would you jail a cancer patient for violating his treatment protocol? A
diabetic for not taking her insulin? Would you jail an overweight person
who is on a diet for eating bread?"

But having cancer or diabetes is not against the law, and bread isn't an
illegal substance, which, in a way, is Nadelmann's point.

We invoke the public health as the reasons we make certain substances
illegal, but then we allow our policy to be driven by the illegality rather
than by health considerations. If the illegality is the main consideration,
then maybe it makes sense that Strawberry is behind bars. And if health is?

"If one form of treatment doesn't work, then try another form," says Nadelmann.

"And if that one doesn't work, then try another one. As with many medical
problems, one treatment doesn't work for everybody. But you don't punish a
patient because the treatment fails."

And on that point, Nadelmann makes sense. So does Raag Singhal, a criminal
defense lawyer in Fort Lauderdale, who agrees that while Bush may have been
treated better than the inner-city youngster we normally think about when
we hear the word "crack," she's probably having a rougher time of it than
the children of other wealthy, but less visible, parents. As he sees it,
the young woman has a problem, and what makes sense is not to punish her
but to find the right treatment for her sickness.

I wish the young woman's father and uncle could see it that way - and not
just for cases involving their own families.