Pubdate: Thu, 15 Aug 2013
Source: New Mexican, The (Santa Fe, NM)
Copyright: 2013 The Santa Fe New Mexican
Contact: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SendLetter/
Website: http://www.santafenewmexican.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/695

REFORM IN DRUG LAWS OVERDUE

The decision by the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric 
Holder to back away from mandatory jail sentences for low-level
federal drug offenders is long overdue.

Finally, the War on Drugs is being retired. With some 2.2 million people 
in jail, according to U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics, the
United States can't keep locking the door and throwing away the key.
Especially, not with nonviolent drug users or small-time dealers
whose major crime is that they chose to get high. It's too expensive.

The prisons became clogged because of mandatory minimum sentences
that sent people to prison whatever their particular situation or 
background. Federal sentencing gave no leeway. Holder's notion is to
side-step the rules.

Prosecutors will stop recording the amount of drugs found on nonviolent
dealers or users who are not associated with larger gangs. That avoids
mandatory sentencing laws based, for example, on how much marijuana or 
meth someone is carrying.

The announcement Monday of the change on policy is a clear - and welcome -
cease-fire in a War on Drugs that became instead, a war against
communities, families and young people. Declared in 1971 by 
then-President Richard Nixon, the result of this war on drug use
has been overflowing prisons. The United States, with but 5 percent
of the world's population, houses 25 percent of all prisoners.

Drug-related offenses are a major factor in prison overcrowding. An 
estimated half of inmates in federal prisons are locked up for drug
offenses. Some 60 percent of those receive sentences under mandatory
sentencing provisions - meaning judges have no discretion.

Holder's announcement deals with federal drug laws, but his sensible
decision to change how drug crimes are prosecuted could continue a push 
for reform at the state and local levels. Those reforms - many already
happening - should include a redirection of public dollars from building
prisons to drug treatment programs so that society treats the root 
cause, not the symptoms of crime.

Santa Fe is joining the reform movement. The city of Santa Fe recently
announced a pilot program that would divert drug offenders to treatment
rather than jail. The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion is expected to
start early next year and would affect people arrested on charges of
illegally possessing opiates. Its success would keep non-violent users 
out of jails, saving money and protecting human capital. Jail, after 
all, is a the place where potential goes to languish, then die.

As Holder said in his announcement: "We must never stop being tough on
crime. But we must also be smarter on crime. Although incarceration has 
a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the
federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable."

Widespread incarceration is also inhumane. This reform is late, but 
still welcome.
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MAP posted-by: Matt