Pubdate: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN) Copyright: 1999 St. Paul Pioneer Press Contact: 345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101 Website: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/ Forum: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/watercooler/ Author: D. J. Tice, Editorial Writer Prisons are not crowded with small-time drug users His Majesty Gov. Jesse Ventura is preoccupied these days with the idea of legalizing drugs and prostitution. He talks about one or both several times a month, and more frequently of late. It was in the heat of a tirade about the benefits of legalizing prostitution that the governor, in his Playboy interview, was inspired to lash out at organized religion. Last month the governor broadcast his weekly radio show from the Shakopee women's prison, largely to create a sympathetic background for criticizing tough anti-drug laws. He repeated his view that prisons should be for violent felons and we're only protecting drug offenders from themselves by imprisoning them. One could come away from this with an impression drug-legalization advocates often seem eager to create -- that our prisons are filled with small-time drug users. Perhaps a few facts would come in handy. According to the Minnesota Corrections Department, 864 drug offenders were in state custody (prison or work release) as of July 1, making up 15 percent of all state prisoners. More than half of them were committed to state custody for trafficking in hard drugs. Of the 47 percent of drug inmates committed for ``possession'' offenses (that's just 7 percent of the total state prison population), two-thirds possessed such large quantities that they were almost certainly drug dealers, even though they weren't convicted as such. Less than 4 percent of drug offenders (that's half of 1 percent of the total state prison population) were committed for marijuana offenses -- virtually always for trafficking. Federal prisons, it is true, house far larger proportions of drug offenders. But there, too, dealers vastly outnumber users. More importantly, federal prisons contain only a tiny fraction of the nation's inmates. While many other states also incarcerate more drug offenders (and more criminals generally) than Minnesota does, the fact remains that America's inmates are in fact mostly violent criminals, while most drug inmates are serious traffickers -- not innocent users who harm only themselves. There are respectable arguments for drug decriminalization. But let's keep the facts straight about the effects of the drug policies we have. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake