HURT DEALERS, BUT GET HELP TO USERS

If there is anyone who benefits from yet another person becoming a drug
user it is the dealer who takes dollars for something that ruins or takes
lives.

Laws that prescribe penalties for such destructive conduct have to be tough
enough to both mete out appropriate justice and hopefully serve as a
deterrent to drug dealing.

The Illinois General Assembly has taken a strong step in this direction.
Currently, heroin dealers can evade more serious jail time by limiting the
amount of the drug they have in their possession at one time. Legislation
passed Tuesday by the Illinois Senate closes that loophole by making felony
possession of 1 to 15 grams of heroin punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The bill that was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. David Sullivan, a Park
Ridge Republican, already has been approved by the House.

There is no debating the destructiveness of heroin use, which is increasing
at an alarming rate in the suburbs. Merchants of misery have to be dealt
with severely. This bill is aimed at those who possess drugs not to use
them, but with the specific intent of selling them.

But even if every dealer is thrown in jail, it doesn't solve the problem of
peer pressure to take drugs. It doesn't cure addiction and its awful
consequences - crime, economic ruin and families torn asunder.

It also is evident that toughening penalties - the linchpin of this
nation's strategy for abating drug abuse - has not effectively reduced
demand. It has, though, put a strain on state budgets, including Illinois',
that are now badly out of balance.

Indeed, a recent study by the nonprofit organization Justice Policy
Institute revealed that "today it is costing states, counties and the
federal government nearly $40 billion to imprison approximately two million
state and local inmates, up from $5 billion in combined prison and jail
expenditures in 1978. Twenty-four billion of that was spent on the
incarceration of nonviolent offenders." These include drug offenders.

Effective treatment programs, such as drug courts that give drug abusers a
chance to avoid incarceration by making a commitment to get clean, need
more policy and funding attention. Admittedly, that is tough to do in
today's budget-crisis atmosphere. But treatment and drug education simply
have to be given a higher priority.

There is no disputing drug dealers have to get the kind of attention from
lawmakers that is found in the recent action taken by the Illinois General
Assembly. But the human wreckage dealers leave behind as they pack for
prison has to be repaired, too, if there is to be substantial progress in
getting a handle on a drug abuse problem that is far from being brought
under control.