Two items struck me as I read the Idaho Statesman today, in its new and revised form.
First the honesty to its readers was truly refreshing regarding the slight delivery problems we are experiencing, via this new cooperative printing that's helping keep alive a local hometown paper. Admitting its error was impacting. Front page, no less...I was very impressed with the apology...and accept it.
Second, the Statesman published a Reader's View today by a fellow named Chet Bowers (see below). They should be commended for printing his piece about throwing more drug addicts behind bars, as the opinions expressed by him are very controversial..and I believe his comments are in error.
Printing his Readers View affords those of us who are in the fields of incarceration and addiction a platform from which to speak and hopefully counter his flawed perspective.
I'm not sure that I've met Mr. Bowers. I may have. In my former days of supporting things like "three strikes, you're out" and the harsh prison treatment for drug users - so as to supposedly curb demand (and thus limit supply), Mr. Bowers might have sat in an audience and appauded me. I can understand why he feels as he feels.
I cetainly felt that way once. Much of my perspective at that time on this issue was fear-based.
Not so today. What I found is that incarceration for drug addicts (who do not distibute or manufacture)is closely akin to believing for the success of debtor prisons for those who owe funds. They never get out to pay their debt...It's illogical and it does not work. It didn't work in the old days, and it'd be foolish to institute it today, wouldn't it? It's the same with drug addicts: incarcerating them does not heal them.
Mr. Bowers, and those who support his belief, fail in their understanding of the disease nature of addiction. To argue that addicts should be sentenced to harsh penalties and stiff time in jail/prison, seems, in a sense, to argue that lapsed diabetics who indulge in the consumption of their "drug of choice" (sugar) ought to be treated equally as roughly, while both fully ignoring the science of their problems and completley ignoring the success of education and treatment.
It's the same with drug addiction. I know this because of New Hope Community Health's treatment and housing programs.
Neo-conservatives love to vent in public, don't they? It's colorful, explosive and sends debris everywhere. Bomb throwers love that. And it's easy...happens in nano-seconds, doesn't it?
Bridge-builders spend incredible amounts of time constructing, examining, bulding and re-building. It's not flashy, just productive.
Throw addicts behnid bars? Mr. Bowers, your perspective is convenient, but invalid. Over 1,000 folks who have, in one form or another, gone through New Hope's program would join me in this correct conclusion: proper treatment keeps addicts out of prison and back with their families. It's a savings of dollars and souls.
Den
Here's his piece:
Chet Bowers: Harshly punish drug users - and manufacturers, too
READER'S VIEW:
BY CHET BOWERS - Idaho Statesman
Published: 03/07/09
A guest opinion by a recently retired professor, probably from the liberal campus of California Berkeley or Boise State University, claims that incarceration is not effective in dealing with drug addicts.
Any police officer or magistrate in southern Idaho will confirm that well over 50 percent of all crime is drug related. We have increasing numbers of folks lacking in principle or self-discipline who succumb to this destructive practice. They may be under a bridge or in a boardroom.
We spend millions on interdiction attempting to destroy the Colombian or Mexican drug cartels. We spend another bundle trying to get Afghanistan farmers to grow potatoes instead of poppies and then there's the ridiculous "fence."
Wouldn't it make more sense to address the cause of the problem, rather than throwing money at the effect? The users are costing us dearly in their criminal activity, and pose a real threat to our police officers. Then, following their apprehension, we spend more money on their rehabilitation.
It is time to conspicuously identify these users to the public and law enforcement agencies. We should not encourage cultural decay where some government entity is always standing by to hold our hand or bail us out. Instead of coddling the victims of their own bad decisions, we should impose stiff fines and jail time with even harsher penalties for manufacturers and distributors of illegal drugs - supply follows demand.
Chet Bowers lives in Boise.
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