Study - States turning away from 'get tough' drug approach

Scores of laws and voter initiatives since 1996 have turned states away from "get tough" drug policies that emphasize the penalties for drug offenses, according to a report released Tuesday by an advocacy group.

States approved measures that stress treatment instead of incarceration, restore voting rights and welfare benefits for offenders and allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Overall, states were cobbling together policies that treat addiction more like an illness than a crime, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports such an approach.

More than 150 laws have been passed and support has come from both Democrats and Republicans, according to the report's authors and state lawmakers who spoke in a teleconference Tuesday.

"There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way the war on drugs has been pursued" from conservatives and liberals, said Washington state Sen. Adam Kline, a Democrat.

Dissatisfied or not, many of the new anti-drug efforts also have been driven by financial worries, as most states struggle with budget deficits. A state prison inmate, on average, costs $30,000 a year, the report said, citing federal studies.

The study found that voters in 17 states have approved drug-reform initiatives, often to allow marijuana use for medical purposes, to provide for treatment instead of incarceration for some drug offenses, or to ease laws on seizing assets in drug cases.

Overall, 46 states passed laws to ease tough laws on drug violations, including:

Sentencing reforms in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

Restoring some or all welfare eligibility to drug offenders in 29 states.

Allowing marijuana use for medical needs in nine states and the District of Columbia.

Prosecutors across the country also see the change, said Bob Honecker, a Monmouth County, N.J., prosecutor and vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.

But Honecker cautioned that what is emerging is a mix-and-match approach, one that combines flexibility, creativity and harsh penalties to address a wide range of problems.

"The realization is that you need several different approaches to deal with drugs," Honecker said.

The study characterized the new approach as one of "harm reduction" -- "the awareness that not just drug abuse, but also misguided drug policies, can cause grave harms to individuals and society."

Besides budget pressures, there has been a recognition that prison populations were rising too rapidly, and were affecting low-income people and minorities disproportionately, said Connecticut state Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat.

Lawlor, a prosecutor, said he pushed for tougher laws for the first half of his 18 years in the state legislature, but then changed direction as he saw the results. "For the past eight or nine years I've been working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to try and undo the unintended consequences," he said.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said that as state lawmakers embrace such changes without a backlash from voters, he hoped to see similar changes on the federal level.

According to a report released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year.

On the Net

Drug Policy Alliance: www.drugpolicy.org