Published: June 15, 2007 10:51 am            

Speaker says state studying drug issue

There is “quite a bit of momentum” in Oklahoma for moving away from treating non-violent drug users as criminals to policies that would address drug use and addiction as public health issues, according to state Sen. Andrew Rice.

Rice, who represents District 46 in Oklahoma City, spoke during the Oklahoma Drug Policy Forum meeting in Stillwater on Wednesday.

He cited Gov. Brad Henry’s proposed Smart on Crime program, which would divert non-violent drug offenders to residential treatment, as a step in the right direction. Taking someone who is not a criminal and putting him in jail, where his risks of becoming a criminal increase, is “from a fiscal, moral and pragmatic standpoint, the wrong thing to do,” he said.

The bad news, he added, is that while the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, of which he is a member, requested $20 million for the Smart on Crime program, it was allocated $3 million in the new state budget.

Still, he is optimistic that public opinion is slowly moving toward viewing drug use and addiction as health issues. Part of the problem, he said, is district attorneys, judges and other people in elective office like to show that they’re “tough on crime” and are fearful of taking too strong a position on controversial issues like drug laws. They often soft-pedal their public statements by rationalizing that if they get beaten, someone worse could get in office, and then they wouldn’t be able to do any good at all.

People in public office need to have more courage, Rice said. In the current climate, he believes, people are “yearning for authenticity.” He is often urged, he said, not to go before the cameras and talk about his own problems with substance abuse, but he opened his presentation to the Drug Policy Forum by sharing some information about his problems with alcohol and drugs in high school and college. After he went into recovery in early college, said the 34-year-old husband and father of two children, his “mind opened up.”

While a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, he traveled in India, talking to people about the heroin epidemic there, including Buddhist monks who ran drug recovery programs. In 1999, he completed a documentary film about an ex-convict who runs a hospice for AIDS victims in Bangalore. And after his brother was killed in the bombing of the World Trade Towers, he became a member of the steering committee of the 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, which was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in both 2003 and 2004.

The emphasis in recovery programs, he said, is on “trying to help people overcome” and fulfill their potential. Although confidentiality policies prevent him from naming names or positions, he said, anyone who goes to substance abuse recovery meetings will find “lots of successful, well-known” members of the community there.

“People are starting to talk more forcefully about who we put away and for what,” he said, pointing out that although Oklahoma has a high percentage of church-goers, the state’s record on substance abuse, unwanted pregnancies, divorce rates and other social problems compares unfavorably with other states.

Substance abuse is a complex problem, Rice concluded, and we’re not yet at a place where people really understand all the issues, but he suggested that more openness about the problems and courage in taking a stand could lead to more fiscally and socially responsible policies.

        

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