S Peele on Drug Reformers Promoting More Coercion

[Guest guest]

{From the Addict-L List)

The Drug Reform Movement Is Doing the Wrong

Thing

The California ballot initiative (Proposition 36), along with the New

York state judicial one (the Judge Kaye administrative order),

supported

by the drug reform movement, will have exactly the opposite impact

from

that sought by drug reformers. These initiatives involve the state --

and particularly judicial sanctions -- in individual drug use, with

the

added horror that users will be forced to follow religiously-dictated

abstinence programs and to declare themselves clinically ill. The

drug

policy reform movement is doing exactly the wrong thing in supporting

these initiatives. Note the following:

1. To a large extent, such policies (compelling low-level users

into

religiously-based treatment programs) are already in force in

California

and New York.

2. The primary impact off such programs -- which generally involve

those apprehended for drug and drug paraphernalia possession -- will

be

on casual and recreational drug users.

3. Since such individuals are already not sentenced to prison (the

New York order concerns only misdemeanants and not those covered by

the

Rockefeller laws), the initiatives will not reduce prison populations,

but will threaten more people with imprisonment.

4. Although courts in both California and New York (including New

York's highest court) hold that the state cannot compel people to

attend

12-step-based programs since they are indubitably religiously based,

the

treatment into which drug users will be mandated will almost

universally

be 12-step-based.

5. In order to meet the requirements of such programs, individuals

must declare themselves powerless over their substance use, declare

their dedication to a high power, and foreswear all alcohol and drug

use.

6. Those who fail to do so will be considered noncompliant with a

court order, and thus be subject to, in California, " tough penalties

for

people who flounder in or flout drug treatment. . . .includ[ing]

sentences of one to three years in prison or county jail. "