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Is Anyone Listening?
by Daniel K. Duncan, NCADA's Director of Community Services.
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on February 26, 2010.
On Feb. 3, Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice William Ray Price had much to say to the Missouri Legislature and pulled no punches. His comments focused on non-violent crime, saying we've been "tough on crime, but we have not been smart on crime."
Specifically, he discussed Missouri's response to drug and alcohol abuse. He pointed to the billions of dollars spent on a failed "War on Drugs," as evidence that the "biggest waste of resources in all of state government is the over-incarceration of non-violent offenders and our mishandling of drug and alcohol offenders." He noted our current response is costing us "billions of dollars and it is not making a dent in crime." The chief justice has it right and our elected officials heard him speak ... but were they really listening?
In myriad legislative hearings over the years concerning various bills to work for or against an improved response to drug and alcohol abuse in Missouri, advocates in the alcohol and drug abuse field have earnestly tried to communicate to our elected officials the need to rethink our strategies, i.e., learn from our mistakes and craft a new, more intelligent and cost-effective approach.
Similarly, these same messages have been communicated in individual meetings with legislators either in their capitol offices or back home in their own districts. Advocates have communicated their observations, suggestions and potential solutions based upon their experience and expertise.
Time and time again what they've run up against influence of ideologues and lobbyists. The ideology is rooted in a failed attempt to arrest our way out of the problem; the lobbyists represent industries with interested in maintaining the status quo. The result is inertia that reveals a lack of vision by our elected officials.
Judge Price articulately discussed drug courts as having better success and cost savings than locking up drug offenders. He rightly noted the lesson learned should result in more drug courts and a similar application in establishing specific courts for drunken driving. Additionally, he pointed out the need to provide treatment and job training for these non-violent drug offenders. Again, he couldn't be more on target … but is anyone listening?
A week before the chief justice's address, a front-page Post-Dispatch article profiled the rise of heroin use in the St. Louis region. St. Louis County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Case was quoted as saying she is seeing "huge numbers of heroin deaths." At the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse we have noted this same trend, specifically a dramatic increase in the number of teens using heroin, virtually teens from all across the St. Louis area.
Adding to the mounting challenge of aging baby boomers who already present a wide variety of drug and alcohol problems, we now see a generation of young drug users adding heroin, methamphetamine and prescription drug abuse to the mix.
These young users are the people who, in just a few years, will be the next wave to get caught up in the justice system, contributing to the "bottleneck" that Judge Price referenced as "arresting far more people than we can handle down through the system." It has become increasingly clear that not only can we not arrest our way out of this problem and that we have much work to do if we are to adequately address our unmet responsibility to better protect our youth.
In counseling a philosophy suggests, "If something's not working, don't do more of the same, try something different." This lesson can be applied broadly to Missouri's situation. It is time to do something different, but not something without having evidence to suggest upfront that it will work, save lives and save dollars.
I must stress that decriminalizing drug usage is not the same thing as legalizing drug usage, a strategy we feel would be courting disaster. Decriminalization is not just a matter of changing sentencing laws. We cannot and should not decriminalize in the absence of accompanying strategies that offset punishment and sentencing.
Decriminalization should include an increase in prevention programming for youth, increasing drug courts, increasing DWI courts and, equally important, providing more and better treatment programs. It makes sense and mirrors what Judge Price and others on the front lines advocate. I ask one more time, is anyone listening?
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