Recovery camps
This is not a liberal or a conservative issue. Reforming the criminal justice system's approach to drug addiction is key to improving life in general in and around Baltimore. And this is not just a city issue. It effects everyone in the metropolitan area in some way.
This is about government doing something illogical over a long period of time -- and it's getting us nowhere and it's costing a huge amount of money.
"Recovery camps" are mentioned in Sunday's column. I'm talking about federal, state and privately-funded camps away from urban areas, where drug addicts in recovery could get daily treatment and counseling, three square meals, a place to sleep and, for most of the day, job training. This is a New Deal for the drug-addicted, the men and women who have been caught up in heroin and cocaine and who have committed crimes to maintain their habits. This is treatment-plus, a holistic approach to breaking the cycle of addiction/low or no employment/incarceration/addiction . . . What we're doing now, under present laws and limited treatment regimens, is getting us almost nowhere. If we really want to have sustainable neighborhoods, a better city, kids well-fed and well-educated, a further reduction in poverty, a break in the long, ridiculous and costly buildup of prison populations, then Maryland and the nation needs an imaginative and comprehensive approach to the addictions that are at the root of 80 percent of crimes. I am not a supporter of decriminalization -- largely because I think it is politically unrealistic, and because I believe the present laws do serve as a deterrent for many people. For those who are already sick from addiction -- let's stop treating them like criminals. Put the money we'd be spending on prisons into recovery camps for a few years, and measure the results. It's got to be better than what we are doing now.
Here's an early e-mail from a reader, Clay Welch in Pikesville:
"do you ever feel like you're preaching to the choir &/or pissing in the wind on issues like this? ignorance is doing the wrong thing, stupidity is doing the wrong thing over and over again. well our governments, local and national have been doing the stupid thing when it comes to drug addiction for about a century. the chickens are coming home to roost now that the economy is in the toilet. drug abuse and the incarceration rate/costs you mention are right up there with another stupid title, the war on terrorism as an excuse for any and every military expediture that comes down the pike. george w's military spending has been absolutely obscene. . . . former mayor schmoke more or less retired from public life after proposing decriminalization of drug addiction & treatment on demand. so now that we have to make some very hard decisions regarding how we spend our shrinking resources let's divert a big chunk of the bloated military budget and a chunk of the local prison budget to treatment on demand! i truly believe this will go a long way towards solving most of the social ills we suffer today. the human resources we create will make us a wealthier and more prosperous nation in the process."
Comments
Dan: I have no strong objections to your idea, simply because we need to start doing so much more to address this problem. Your suggestions are as good a start as any. However, my single greatest concern is your appeal to "sustainable neighborhoods." I think you are absolutely correct to see neighborhood change as the deepest level of necessary change. However, I fear that your suggestions for recovery camps explicitly does nothing in this regard. In fact, it rather symbolically avoids it by sending folks out of the neighborhoods for treatment. Where do they go after treatment? Presumably, back into the neighborhoods, where the success of their treatment will be greatly imperiled.
You say you oppose decriminalization for two reasons. Fine. I am somewhat sympathetic to your first, and rather unsympathetic to the second. However, the drug trade is an economic reality, not just a narcotic reality. Recovery camps address the narcotic side on an individual basis, and this is good. But the economic reality will probably produce ten new addicts for every one you could hope to treat. There must be an economic response to this issue. Without an economic response, individual addicts may find hope in recovery camps, but there will be no change in the neighborhoods within which the drug economy is entrenched.
I am very interested in more disucssion about the legislation you discussed in the column regarding reduced sentences. Perhaps more discussion of that could come in the future.
Posted by: Joe Pettit | April 6, 2008 3:22 PM
Long term rehab works better then short term and the recovery camp idea has to be better than prison. In Florida they are planning to cut the budget to zero for drug treatment but increase beds for the Department of Corrections. I can't think of a worse plan for Florida. You have written a good blog.
Posted by: Nathan Harris | April 6, 2008 4:04 PM