Pubdate: Thu, 31 Jan 2002
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2002 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: Mike Thomas

NOELLE BUSH NEEDS HELP, AS ALL ADDICTS DO

I knew Noelle Bush had a drug problem before she was arrested.

The state editor told me.

He knew because most of the reporters in Tallahassee who cover the governor 
knew about it.

We are not the mudslingers we are portrayed to be. This was Jeb's family 
affair and had no bearing on his job, so it was off-limits.

But when Noelle was arrested, the family matter became a criminal matter 
and therefore a story.

 From a political perspective, it will be embarrassing and distracting for 
Bush. I hope it will be one more thing -- enlightening.

In the booking picture of Noelle Bush, she looks like she could have been 
arrested on a street corner, trying to earn enough for her next fix. She 
has the hollow-eyed, defeated look of an addict.

But when an addict is the daughter of a doctor, lawyer or governor, she is 
upgraded to "victim of substance abuse."

The only real difference between substance abusers and addicts is the drug 
they are addicted to and their financial resources.

Poor crack users are addicts. Wealthy prescription-drug users are substance 
abusers.

We think of one as a criminal -- and the other as a family problem.

I am not saying Noelle Bush is a criminal, far from it. Jail will do her no 
good. When it comes to addiction, all jail does is delay the next fix.

What I am saying is: Let's put all addicts in the same boat and treat them 
the same way.

Addiction is a medical problem, resulting from a mix of social and personal 
issues, possibly aggravated by genetic predisposition.

And yet we continue to attack the problem with cops and courts, which is 
why we haven't made any headway since the 1960s in curbing addiction. Our 
generation has been doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past generation. 
We toss aside reality for law-and-order rhetoric.

For the past 10 years, more people have been sent to jail for drug offenses 
than any other charge. Last year, almost 29 percent of Florida prisoners 
had been convicted of drug offenses. Karen Johnson, a woman whose main 
crime was addiction to painkillers, died of withdrawal in the Orange County 
Jail last year.

I am not familiar with Noelle Bush's case except that she has been in 
drug-treatment centers in the past and the problem has been ongoing for 
years. But I wonder if she could have wound up like Karen Johnson if her 
parents didn't have the resources to intervene.

The Bushes did what any of us would do in the circumstances. They tried to 
help their loved one and to keep her out of the criminal- justice system. 
If not for that support, she may well have run afoul of the law years ago.

Noelle will not go to jail, nor should she unless she endangers somebody. 
But what is right for her also is right for some other addicts who wind up 
in jail because they have no money or family support.

They need help, not punishment. Yet the Department of Corrections, under 
Jeb Bush, has approved a $13 million budget cut that will slash 
drug-treatment programs for inmates and scale back programs to help addicts 
outside the prisons.

It's not because the programs don't work. Of those prisoners who completed 
the treatment program, 70 percent stayed out of jail.

Jeb Bush should look at Noelle and consider what her fate would be if she 
were being sent off to a jail cell with nobody there to help her.

And if that thought grabs at a father's heart, then he should reconsider 
what his administration is doing.
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