Julie Roberts
Representative Dennis Kintigh’s recent article misses the mark when discussing the incarceration of people with marijuana possession convictions and people struggling with drug addiction.
Kintigh acknowledges in his article that even though people with marijuana possession charges are unlikely to end up in prison, they may still be sentenced to jail for the offense. And he’s right. According to the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Court’s Judicial Information Division, in 2009 alone 2,790 cases were filed in New Mexico charging people with marijuana possession.
Of those cases, almost 400 people were sentenced to serve time in our county jails, and about 200 people were put on probation.
When you crunch the numbers, this means that New Mexico taxpayers spent almost $1 million to make sure people with marijuana possession charges served an average of 20 days in jail or one year on probation. While few individuals end up behind prison bars for marijuana possession, they are more likely to spend some time in jail before trial and then be sentenced to probation.
They may not be in our state’s prisons, but they have been brought under the supervision of the criminal justice system – one of the single greatest predictors of future imprisonment.
Is this how New Mexicans want their money spent?
It is time for New Mexicans to ask if this is how we want our tax dollars spent. Local governments around the country are rightly looking toward alternatives to marijuana prohibition to prevent the wasteful use of our taxpayer dollars to target adults possessing marijuana for their own personal use.
While relatively few individuals end up behind prison bars for marijuana possession in New Mexico, Representative Kintigh fails to address that possession of other much more harmful drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, often results in fourth-degree felony convictions and subsequent time behind bars.
According to the Judicial Information Division, more than 8,000 people were charged with drug possession in 2008. Of those, about 600 people were sentenced to serve time in our county jails at a cost of $3,206,026 for the year. Furthermore, 1,122 people were sentenced to probation, at a cost of $1,378,594 to our state.
The 92 people in prison for simple drug possession that Representative Kintigh refers to cost taxpayers an additional $3 million dollars. The majority of them are struggling with drug addiction. We spend almost $8 million a year to keep these people in the criminal justice system, rather than addressing their very treatable condition.
A health issue, not a criminal issue
Kintigh also highlights that many individuals who end up in prison for drug possession have prior convictions. Our criminal justice system has created a cycle of incarceration, release and re-incarceration at a cost of millions of dollars every year to the taxpayer.
People struggling with drug abuse often commit crimes to feed their own addictions. Without receiving access to the community-based substance abuse treatment that they need to manage their addiction and rebuild their lives, these individuals will continue to cycle in and out of our prisons and jails.
The cost-effective and commonsense solution is to treat drug use and addiction as a health issue, not a criminal one. Not only is substance abuse treatment cheaper than incarceration, but also benefits public safety by getting people with addictions the help that they need and finally ending the cycle of addiction and incarceration.
As for people with marijuana possession arrests, I encourage our state to think critically about the best use of law enforcement’s time and our scarce criminal justice system’s resources. In these economic times, where is our money truly better spent?
Roberts is Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico’s acting state director.