It’s easy to understand why people feel uncomfortable changing Maine’s drug sentencing laws. Our national drug policy has made sure that we fear illegal drugs and blame them for all sorts of social problems while we ignore the rest of the drug use equation – the environment and the mental health of the people who use them.
The evidence is pretty clear that what we’re doing isn’t working. That’s why it’s hard to understand why we feel comfortable sending people to jail and prison, where we know the chances of a healthy life are severely diminished, rather than try something different, something that has a chance of creating options for people who use drugs to seek treatment and recovery.
It may be a bitter pill to swallow – to admit that we made a mistake, that punishing drug users only makes our drug problems worse. But it’s true. For most people, being in jail or prison is a barrier to recovery, and having a felony conviction is a barrier to getting good housing and a decent job, two of the building blocks of recovery.
L.D. 967 makes possession of drugs for personal use a civil offense, punishable by a fine and the possibility of treatment. If you love someone who uses drugs, wouldn’t you want them to have access to treatment instead of a jail cell?
Alison Webb
Portland
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