Pubdate: Mon, 30 Oct 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Section: Opinion
Contact:  229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://forums.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Robert L. Cohen, M.D.
Note: The writer is a former director of medical services on Rikers Island 
for Montefiore Hospital.

Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1612/a11.html?41373

A DRUG LAW OVERHAUL

As you note in "A Better Approach to Drug Offenders" (editorial, Oct. 26), 
treatment is more effective and cheaper than incarceration. But 
California's Proposition 36, like a proposal in New York to establish a new 
apparatus of "drug courts," is the wrong approach.

As you point out, if offenders fail the drug court treatment, they are then 
faced with felony criminal charges. What changed? Drug users are repeatedly 
arrested. Why on one occasion do they deserve treatment, and on another 
occasion they deserve imprisonment?

Drug users who want treatment should receive it. The mass incarceration of 
drug users in New York and California must be ended, but drug courts are 
not the answer. Decriminalization of drug possession is the answer.

Robert L. Cohen, M.D. New York
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager