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How Political Expediency Muzzles Public Debate

Former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell's recent
remark that we should consider decriminalizing drugs garnered
headlines in newspapers across the state. That's not surprising,
considering Mitchell's reputation as a tough law-and-order judge.

But there's something troubling about the reaction to Mitchell's
suggestion that goes beyond the issue he raised. Mitchell made the
remarks at a luncheon about the prison crisis and sentencing reform
sponsored by NC Policy Watch and the North Carolina chapter of
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a national group fighting the
insanity of habitual-felon laws and mandatory minimum sentences.

Mitchell's comments overshadowed compelling presentations by Mark
Mauer, director of The Sentencing Project (a Washington, D.C.-based
nonprofit) and former N.C. House Speaker Dan Blue. Mauer provided
startling statistics about the criminal-justice system. One is that a
black male born in 1991 has roughly a one-in-three chance of going to
prison in his lifetime. A white male born the same year faces a
one-in-25 chance.

Blue described the efforts to restore sanity to criminal sentencing in
North Carolina with the passage, in the early 1990s, of "structured
sentencing." The program worked well until it was modified in recent
years - which helped create the current overcrowding in state prisons
and prompted calls for building still more of them.

Yet it was Mitchell's call for legalization that became the flash
point of the moment - not only because it was a surprise but because
of the way the policy debate in general is conducted these days.
Certain topics, it seems, are strictly off-limits, regardless of their
merits, because they're too politically risky.

Whatever you think of Mitchell's suggestion, there is clearly evidence
that it's an option that deserves a place in the debate. One-fourth of
the nation's inmates are behind bars for drug offenses - and that's
not counting the people incarcerated for committing other crimes
related to drug addiction. A full 75 percent of criminal-court filings
in North Carolina involve substance abuse in some form or other. The
overwhelming majority of inmates in the state prison system suffer
from substance-abuse problems.

Mitchell is far from the only voice advocating decriminalization of
drugs; many other law-enforcement officials and judges agree. That
doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, but it does mean the proposal
deserves some honest debate. Yet that never happens, because the
unofficial rules of the policy debate don't allow it.

Politicians are afraid they'll be portrayed as soft on crime or
encouraging drug use, even though many law-enforcement officials
support the plan. But discussing decriminalization forces us to
consider the overall role of substance abuse in crime - which could
lead to more support for drug-treatment programs as an alternative to
prison.

And it's not just the drug war that's off-limits. Virtually every
health-care professional will tell you that the health-care system in
the United States is broken, the cost of care is rising dramatically,
and the percentage of people without insurance is increasing every
year. But mention the need for universal coverage and you're branded
as "out of the political mainstream" or even "a socialist."

HIV/AIDS is spreading through rural communities, primarily via dirty
needles shared by IV drug users who then infect their partners. State
lawmakers, however, have yet to consider the merits of a
needle-exchange program to reduce the infection rate. Public-health
professionals, drug-abuse counselors and many law-enforcement
officials support such programs. But politicians are afraid, so the
debate never happens.

The people are not as narrow-minded as our political debate has
become. They just want problems solved. And the first step is for our
leaders to find the courage to consider all the possible solutions.