CA: Drug initiative trims prison population

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California's prison population will drop by
more than 5,000 inmates in the first year after
voters opted to send drug offenders to treatment
instead of prison, according to new projections.

The SacBee

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), April 14, 2001

Answers

But the reduction in the prison population will not create a significant reduction in cost because we will still be spending money to send people through treatment that do not need treatment. The "War on Drugs" is lost until we stop arresting casual pot smokers.

This strategy also fails to recobnize that many of those forced through treatment (now I'm am talking about the hard core addicts) will repeatedly fall off the wagon. CA. law only lets you fall off the wagon twice. Some people will fall off over and over but they still shouldn't go to prison. Furthermore, nothing is being done to take the criminal incentive away from organized crime.

However, it is at least a step in a better direction toward harm reduction.

-- Tom Flook (tflook@earthlink.net), April 14, 2001.


I agree. The war on drugs is really a war on
the people. If drugs were legalized the profit
would be taken out, addicts would be able to
seek treatment without recriminations and the
fascist forfeiture laws would have to look for
another defenseless sector to ravage.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), April 15, 2001.

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