Pubdate: Thu, 09 May 2002
Source: Daily Herald (IL)
Copyright: 2002 The Daily Herald Company
Contact:  http://www.dailyherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/107
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

HURT DEALERS, BUT GET HELP TO USERS

If there is anyone who benefits from yet another person becoming a drug 
user it is the dealer who takes dollars for something that ruins or takes 
lives.

Laws that prescribe penalties for such destructive conduct have to be tough 
enough to both mete out appropriate justice and hopefully serve as a 
deterrent to drug dealing.

The Illinois General Assembly has taken a strong step in this direction. 
Currently, heroin dealers can evade more serious jail time by limiting the 
amount of the drug they have in their possession at one time. Legislation 
passed Tuesday by the Illinois Senate closes that loophole by making felony 
possession of 1 to 15 grams of heroin punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The bill that was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. David Sullivan, a Park 
Ridge Republican, already has been approved by the House.

There is no debating the destructiveness of heroin use, which is increasing 
at an alarming rate in the suburbs. Merchants of misery have to be dealt 
with severely. This bill is aimed at those who possess drugs not to use 
them, but with the specific intent of selling them.

But even if every dealer is thrown in jail, it doesn't solve the problem of 
peer pressure to take drugs. It doesn't cure addiction and its awful 
consequences - crime, economic ruin and families torn asunder.

It also is evident that toughening penalties - the linchpin of this 
nation's strategy for abating drug abuse - has not effectively reduced 
demand. It has, though, put a strain on state budgets, including Illinois', 
that are now badly out of balance.

Indeed, a recent study by the nonprofit organization Justice Policy 
Institute revealed that "today it is costing states, counties and the 
federal government nearly $40 billion to imprison approximately two million 
state and local inmates, up from $5 billion in combined prison and jail 
expenditures in 1978. Twenty-four billion of that was spent on the 
incarceration of nonviolent offenders." These include drug offenders.

Effective treatment programs, such as drug courts that give drug abusers a 
chance to avoid incarceration by making a commitment to get clean, need 
more policy and funding attention. Admittedly, that is tough to do in 
today's budget-crisis atmosphere. But treatment and drug education simply 
have to be given a higher priority.

There is no disputing drug dealers have to get the kind of attention from 
lawmakers that is found in the recent action taken by the Illinois General 
Assembly. But the human wreckage dealers leave behind as they pack for 
prison has to be repaired, too, if there is to be substantial progress in 
getting a handle on a drug abuse problem that is far from being brought 
under control.
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