Justice system addicted to arrests and incarceration in war on drugs
Published November 2, 2015
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, October 30, 2015.
As our nation fights its seemingly endless, and losing, war on drugs, our justice system itself has become addicted - to arrests and incarceration.
The dependency has cost taxpayers billions. By some estimates, we've spent more than $1 trillion on the drug war and we have little to show for it but the world's highest population percentage behind bars.
Some national leaders, including the president, have finally questioned the wisdom of our strategy, recognizing that the law of supply and demand is in command here. Interrupting the supply of illegal drugs has proven impossible. So how about slowing the demand instead? That means treating addicts instead of jailing them. In the communities that are trying it, the results are hopeful.
We're pleased to see Fayetteville joining that new movement, as the Police Department shifts its drug-enforcement efforts toward a treatment model. That's only for the users, of course. The pushers are still going to get arrested.
Fayetteville is working to become the first city in the South - and only the fourth in the country - to adopt the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion initiative that began in Seattle four years ago.
As an Observer story last Sunday explained it, LEAD is a collaboration between the police and multiple agencies that provide treatment, counseling, housing, food, clothing and other services.
Thanks to a grant through the N.C. Harm Reduction Coalition, a former SBI agent will help train Fayetteville police in the LEAD program and build a collaborative group that also includes judges, prosecutors, social workers, defense lawyers and nonprofits. The program is expected to begin in about a year.
The biggest obstacle to the program's success is the lack of space for addiction treatment in Fayetteville. There are only 16 addiction-recovery beds here, all at the Myrover-Reese Fellowship Home. That facility is already forced to send addicts out of town for treatment. Finding more treatment space - and the people to run it - has got to be a social-services priority in Fayetteville in the coming year.
The timing for the new program is fortuitous. Fayetteville has a heroin epidemic on its hands and needs all the help it can get. In the last five years, the numbers of heroin overdoses treated treated at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center rose from one to 96 - so far this year. As is happening across the country, heroin is plentiful and cheap. Sending addicts to treatment instead of jail is right for them, for the community, and in the end, for the taxpayers too.
It's good that the LEAD program is coming to Fayetteville. Now let's get treatment facilities ready to work with it.
