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Recovery in the News
Webb urges fresh look at the war on drugs
David Lerman
Daily Press
June 20, 2008
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb began building a public case Thursday to change the nation's drug laws to stress treatment over incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
The freshman Democrat held a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee to solicit testimony from prosecutors and scholars who argued that the decades-long emphasis on incarceration has been costly and ineffective.
Armed with statistics showing soaring incarceration rates and drug seizures, Webb argued — and his witnesses agreed — that authorities have failed to reduce the supply of drugs appreciably.
"Despite the number of people we have arrested, the illegal drug industry and the flow of drugs to our citizens remain undiminished," Webb said.
While much of his work in the Senate has focused on the Iraq war and a new GI bill for veterans, Webb has sought to stir a public debate on an issue he acknowledged could be politically perilous. Advocating reductions in prison time, of course, can trigger charges of being "soft on crime."
But with more than 2 million Americans now behind bars and drug offenders swamping the prisons, Webb argued, it may be more cost effective to consider treatment options for nonviolent offenders.
"The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana," Webb wrote in his new book, "A Time to Fight."
He added in the book: "Drug addiction is not in and of itself a criminal act. It is a medical condition, indeed a disease, just as alcoholism is, and we don't lock people up for being alcoholics."
Webb was not quite as blunt at Thursday's hearing, however, and said he was not pursuing any specific legislation at the moment.
"We're just trying to get the facts out," he said.
Joining Webb for the joint Senate-House hearing was Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-Newport News, a longtime critic of prison-focused crime policies. Scott, chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, said prevention programs such as prenatal care, early-childhood education, summer jobs and access to college would prove more cost effective than spending $65 billion a year to lock people up, as the United States does today.
In a sign of the political stalemate over crime policy on Capitol Hill, however, no Republicans attended Thursday's hearing.
© 2008, Newport News, Va., Daily Press