wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

#18:
The drug users you knew in high school and college (if it was "nearly the entire population," as you claim, should I assume you are from the '60's generation?) ARE still using. Look at the rates for prescription medications. The difference is the dealer. They went from Harvey Keitel in "Taxi Driver" to Roche and Johnson&Johnson.

Unfortunately, many of these pharmaceuticals have serious side effects. And aren't actually necessary, because many of the conditions they are supposedly treating might be better addressed through (gasp!) cost-free lifestyle changes. (Maybe even cost-SAVING lifestyle changes.) But that would hurt the pharmaceutical industry, to which our desperate economy now partially clings for life.

#19: I know enough kids who DID try illegal substances who are now on legal ones. Also: kids who DIDN'T try illegal substances who are now on legal ones. Big Pharma. It's got nearly everyone. Like Soylent Green.

mc,
As always, a good (and scary) point.

Anyway, glad to see the Rock. laws being reformed. They were always insane and a waste of money.

(incidentally the first people I can think of who I do know who never tried an illegal substance are now addicted to legal ones! C'mon, is there really a carol? sounds like a bl show intern provocateur...)

Carol/7 -- OK, I'll bite: how many?

"Drug users" I knew from high school and college (nearly the entire population?) are no longer using. None via incarceration.

Carol from bklyn,

What kind of crack are you smoking? A hard core addict of Heroin, PCP crack or crack cocaine will continue to use no matter what the consequences are until they want to get help and can get help. These are people that think nothing about throwing away their life, family and jobs so they can get high. There is no real drug rehabilitation that goes on in jail because drugs are as easy to get in prison as they are on the streets. The one thing prison does do for non violent first time offender. It teaches them how to be a better criminal by learning from the professionals who are already in prison and are more then happy to pass on their trade.

Something else to consider: The prisoners that are housed upstate are counted when apportioning Congressional seats as part of the district where the prison is,even thought they can't vote. This inflates the number of residents in the district with the prison. Are we losing something there?

It's disappointing that there was no call-in during or after this segment, or any other voice at all. Brennan's entire argument rests on the assumption that prison-based treatment is effective. There is no evidence that is true; the Correctional Association has a research project under way that looks at this issue.

Also, it's interesting to note that unemployment rates don't include our currently unprecedented incarceration rates, which not only represent staggering numbers of people (I'm talking about non-violent offenders here) prevented from contributing to the economy, but we the tax payers pay far more for the cost of the incarceration of individual prisoners than any unemployed person receives in federal assistance.

The NY Times, which broke this story, quoted a $45,000/year incarceration cost per inmate. We could use that money to send them to Harvard instead...or at least Princeton.

The other point to note to disbelievers is that drug use, while not quite as widespread as outside, still goes inside lockup.

By characterizing crack and heroin as perpetrating violence on the citizenry in themselves, Mrs. Brennan concedes that those addicted to them are victims of violence, is she not? Most serious proposals for decriminalization go out of their way to address addicts as victims....

Drug enforcement needs coherent premises, otherwise people like your guest risk coming off as rationalizing careerists.

Oh, yes, these prison evangelists would have you believe that "wacky tabacky" will make you a murderer. It is way past the time when we should have realized that criminalizing drugs is illiberal and unworkable. Even if it means that certain ideologues life work has been a failure.

The guest, like the law, was lumping all drugs together...are we really supposed to believe that there are "marijuana addicts"? I doubt there is any reliable study that calls marijuana an addictive drug. And to lump that in with heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines etc is simply ignorant, and means that they will be ignored. There's precious little difference between alcohol and marijuana. It comes down to "our drugs" (not to mention the ones flooding the airwaves every evening from pharmaceutical companies) are better than "your drugs." Good drugs/bad drugs...and young people and t hose who choose to use, simply aren't buying it.

None carol. None. Also, you can't really argue that, there's no way to prove your or my point either way. What we can do instead is look at how many first time users (and continuous users) there are DESPITE these laws. Waste of money.

It costs $29,000 to house an inmate for one year, how much will we save if we stop incarcerating non-violent drug users?

To answer my critics: How many hundreds or thousands of would-be first-time drug users are now drug-free, thanks to the severe penalties they know they are SURE to pay if they take a chance?

When will people realize that laws don't dissuage people from doing drugs? Norway has liberal drug laws, Sweden has harsh ones, and they have the EXACT SAME rates of addiction. Give up the ghost, people.

If a person is addicted to a narcotic, there is no way that they can sell that substance. Addicts don't support their habit by selling their drug, they do other things. Dealers are pretty shrewd and (except for the movies) are sober. They, like any person with a brain, know you can't trust a fat, hungry kid to keep an eye on chocolate cake. Arresting users, unless its a way to get to the dealer, is a waste of my and your money.

how much will it save tax payers if non violent criminals are not warehoused in upstate prisons

Carol, please. The only thing Rock drug laws are doing is teaching people how to be a burden on society. Too many people are coming away with criminal records, and no one wants to hire someone with a criminal record. Then it's your tax dollars that pay their unemployment and medical expenses. It's you and I who are coming out on the bad end of this.

carol I understand the thinking is that the jails being filled w nonviolent druggies is, er, dopey.

Silly people feel that, since there has been a huge drop in crime in recent years, we can repeal the Rock. drug laws. WHY DO YOU THINK WE HAVE HAD THAT DROP???? Repeal the laws and we are back to the Bad Old Days. The Rock laws are working! They don't need fixing!