Pubdate: Wed, 25 Jun 2003
Source: City Paper (MD)
Copyright: 2003 Baltimore City Paper
Contact:  http://www.citypaper.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/610
Author: Jamil Roberts

Drug Of Choice

GENERAL ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE TO HOLD HEARING ON GRAND JURY REPORT 
RECOMMENDING LEGAL DISTRIBUTION OF NARCOTICS

The Maryland General Assembly's Special Committee on Substance Abuse will 
hold a hearing in early July based on the findings of a 2003 Baltimore City 
Grand Jury Report that suggests new ways for the justice system to deal 
with drug-addicted defendants--including legal distribution of controlled 
substances. The hearing comes only two months after Gov. Robert Ehrlich 
became the nation's first Republican governor to sign a medical-marijuana 
bill into law. The committee, chaired by Sen. Ralph Hughes (D-40th), will 
consider the grand jury's findings and recommendations, as well as the 
opinions of those both for and against drug reform, to determine the need 
for new legislation and programs to handle drug-related crime and problems. 
Among other things, the grand jury--made up of 23 Baltimore 
residents--recommended providing comprehensive care for substance abusers, 
diverting drug-addicted individuals to treatment rather than incarceration, 
making use of criminal citations rather than arrests for certain crimes, 
and exploring the idea of legal, regulated distribution of narcotics.

Bill Piper, associate director of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, 
says that attitudes toward the drug problem are changing. "We're finding 
that policy-makers are stuck on the drug-war policy, but ballot measures 
across the country are showing that the people are not," he says.

Last year more than 50 percent of all criminal cases in Baltimore were for 
felony narcotics violations. As a result, Maryland Circuit Court Judge 
Edward Hargadon assembled the grand jury in January to asses the various 
substance-abuse treatment options available and to suggest ways that the 
courts could better assist defendants with drug problems. The jury's 
findings are based on information gathered from visits with law-enforcement 
agencies, tours of state penitentiaries and detention centers, and 
interviews with recovering addicts and medical specialists. The report says 
that a continuum of care would help recovering addicts become productive 
members of society by providing treatment to the whole individual rather 
than detoxification alone. The report indicates that placing abusers in 
therapeutic communities would help them recover from addiction and avoid 
recidivism. Statistics included in the report to support that argument say 
that those who choose treatment over jail are more successful at becoming 
drug-free and are two-thirds less likely to be arrested for another crime.

Jury members also recommended diverting drug users to mandatory treatment 
programs, which would significantly decrease the number of nonviolent 
offenders in the prison system, thereby freeing up millions of dollars to 
pay for treatment, prevention, and education programs.

"Drug addiction is an illness," says Maurice Smith, executive program 
director of Second Chance Ministries in Baltimore. Smith has created his 
own drug-treatment program that focuses on treatment through the 
transformation of thought processes in the addicted. "[Addiction] requires 
different approaches to bring an individual into a holistic being," he 
says. "Incarcerating is not the answer--we will never have enough police or 
money to deal with the amount of people coming into the system."

Piper says that Americans should take a more "European" stance on drug use. 
"Europeans look at drugs as a public-health problem as opposed to here 
where drug abuse is seen as a moral problem," he says. " Treatment is more 
cost effective than incarceration. Prison doesn't cure drug addiction."

Perhaps the most controversial of the jury's recommendations is its support 
of the licensed distribution of drugs for personal use to those who are 
already addicted. "Conventional modes of attacking the drug problem simply 
aren't working," the report says. "The distribution of drugs is so 
profitable, we are fighting the battle with one arm tied behind our backs." 
This is a far cry from the findings of a 1995 Baltimore grand jury report 
that advocated for the decriminalization of marijuana but found that 
legalizing other illicit substances would be unacceptable. "Legalization is 
not an acceptable solution," that report noted. "American society is one of 
excess. Making drugs available the way that alcohol was legalized and 
distributed after Prohibition would probably exacerbate addictions."

But this year's grand jury agreed that regulated distribution of illegal 
drugs would reduce the violence associated with drug dealing by taking the 
profit out of the business. The report stresses that the members of the 
jury do not endorse drug use or legalization, but that they are trying to 
realistically deal with addiction as a progressive illness. They recommend 
that the government regulate illegal drugs as it does prescription drugs or 
methadone. Unlicensed distribution of the drugs would still be illegal.

"There are already government-run, publicly supported, or taxes programs 
that promote activities that some citizens might consider morally 
inappropriate, such as gambling (Lotto), drinking (alcohol), and smoking 
(tobacco)," the justification for this recommendation reads. "By using this 
sort of intervention, the government offered a control of the chaos 
associated with illegal activities, such as numbers running and bootlegging."

When asked what he thought of this approach to curbing the drug epidemic, 
Second Chance Ministries' Smith was blunt: "I don't think that [regulated 
distribution] is a good idea," he says. " I don't think that we should take 
up the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em-type attitude. We need to focus on 
trying to strengthen the individual."

When contacted at his office for information on how the General Assembly's 
Committee on Substance Abuse plans to handle the report next month, Sen. 
Hughes declined to comment, pending the committee's review of the subject.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens