Commentary

ISSUE 1 AIMS TO NUDGE OHIO TOWARD DRUG LEGALIZATION

The folks who are pushing State Issue 1, the Ohio Drug Treatment
Initiative, on the Nov. 5 ballot, want to decriminalize drug abuse. But
they don't want to say so out loud and hold an open, democratic debate on
the matter.

They'll deny that drug decriminalization is the goal, but all you have to
do is read the proposed constitutional amendment, and it's clear. If the
measure really was about treating nonviolent drug abusers rather than
jailing them, it wouldn't be necessary, because Ohio law already provides
for exactly that.

What Issue 1 seeks to do is take a giant step toward removing the criminal
penalties for using drugs.

There are those, including even prominent conservative William F. Buckley
Jr., who favor drug legalization. There are sober and compelling arguments
for doing so. In a nutshell, the argument says that legalizing drugs and
regulating them like alcohol would, on net, benefit society by taking the
trade out of the hands of criminals, eliminating drug-related violence and
allowing the state to tax consumption and devote the revenues to drug
rehabilitation. But so far, this argument has not swayed a majority of
Americans.

Still, most would agree that a rehabilitated drug abuser is of more value
to himself, his family and society than a drug-dependent prison inmate. But
they also know that without the threat of imprisonment, many abusers would
never make the effort to kick the habit.

Ohio's current law recognizes this. It offers treatment instead of prison
to low-level abusers who agree in good faith to undergo the treatment. But
it reserves to judges the right to lock up those who subsequently fail to
follow through with their treatment plan.

The threat of prison is crucial to overcoming the powerful influence of
addiction, drug-rehabilitation experts say.

Issue 1 backers know that a straightforward campaign to legalize drugs
would fail. So instead, they have dressed it up as common-sense compassion:
Let's give drug abusers treatment instead of prison.

They hope Ohioans will respond with compassion and vote yes, without
reading the fine print that says, oh, and while we're at it, let's slash
the penalties to a slap on the wrist and take away the judge's power to
send recalcitrant offenders to prison.

They sell this plan by implying that scads of otherwise law-abiding Ohioans
are being imprisoned for nothing more than smoking a joint or two. Nothing
could be further from the truth.

According to the Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission, the state agency that
monitors criminal laws and sentencing patterns, very few nonviolent, first-
and second-time drug offenders are in prison simply for possession for
personal use.

Out of more than 45,000 inmates in Ohio's prisons, just 2,650 are low-level
drug felons. Of these, 1,200 are offenders who were sent to prison because
they violated restrictions imposed by courts, usually by committing
additional crimes.

That leaves 1,450.

Of that group, 1,000 are imprisoned because they previously have been
convicted of felony offenses.

That leaves 450.

Among them, about half are imprisoned because they were convicted of
multiple drug offenses, not just a single possession charge.

That leaves 200-plus. These include "persons who pled guilty to avoid more
serious charges, offenders with juvenile or misdemeanor records that
couldn't be ignored, and those that the court plans to release after
serving as little as 30 days," says David Diroll, executive director of the
sentencing commission.

So much for the idea that prisons are packed with peace-loving,
recreational potheads.

By now, voters probably are aware of the other major argument against Issue
1. The measure cements a huge, untested policy right into the Ohio
Constitution. This means that when problems with the amendment arise -- and
they will -- the only way to fix them is with a statewide vote, a
prohibitively difficult and expensive way to set state policy.

If Ohioans want to change the way the state handles drug offenders, the
proper way to do it is in the General Assembly, whose statutes are easily
revised as problems arise or circumstances change.

The constitutional amendment also is expensive, earmarking $247 million
beyond what the state already spends on drug treatment between 2003 and
2009. And lawmakers would be prohibited from using that money for anything
else, even if the state were facing a massive budget shortfall, such as the
$4 billion gap projected for next year.

The measure privileges drug treatment above virtually all other state
responsibilities, including public health, public safety, roads and
bridges, economic development, higher education and environmental
protection, to name just a few.

Under State Issue 1, making certain that a drug abuser got first-class
treatment would be more important than helping a poor Appalachian kid go to
college. Or ensuring that state health authorities have the resources to
respond to an anthrax attack. Or to clean up a toxic waste site that is
poisoning a school.

Is this how most Ohioans would arrange the priorities on the state's
spending list? Not likely.

And even those who support drug decriminalization must have cringed at the
recent comments of Peter B. Lewis, one of the primary backers of the drug
initiative and chairman of Cleveland-based Progressive Corp., which
specializes in selling insurance to high-risk drivers.

In an interview published Sept. 29 in Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Lewis said
he is committed to making drugs as legal and available as alcohol. He
thinks people should be allowed to use drugs recreationally.

"As long as you're not hurting somebody else, who the hell cares?" Lewis
told the interviewer. "Kill yourself. God bless you."

Kill yourself. God bless you. This is Lewis' vision for Ohio?

Unlike Lewis, most Ohioans don't think they should stand by and do nothing
while mothers, fathers, sons and daughters destroy themselves with drugs.
They believe that drug abuse, just like alcoholism, almost always hurts
someone else, beginning with the abuser's family.

Those who seek drug legalization should say so openly and submit the idea
to full public debate, so that Ohioans know exactly what they're signing up
for. The Issue 1 initiative doesn't do that; it tries to slip in through
the back door. The measure is deceptive and defective and deserves to be
defeated.