Before drug courts became a method of satellite justice to Michigan's criminal court system, the addict was known as a criminal and a disease was considered a breach of the law. Accordingly, a very real consequence of that one-track regulation put drug addicts in prison alongside violent criminals with very little discernible treatment between the two.
How that was ever an effective measure of treatment and rehabilitation for the nonviolent drug user, we'll never know. The demons of addiction have long been known to be the result of chemical impairment, not environment or even disposition to violence. Instead of receiving necessary medical treatment and care, prisoners were given to clean up from behind bars. To be sure, the possession of a controlled or illicit substance is a breach of the law, but in no way has that ever insinuated a form of punishment in line with that of a murderer.
After that lump sum reasoning proved contrary to the goal of prisons' all-encompassing rehabilitation, the advent of drug courts divested the nonviolent drug user from that undue treatment. In lieu of a jail sentence, offenders undergo mental health treatment, drug screening or supervised probation. Addicts were given the opportunity to clean themselves up with the support of family and friends, and treatment replaced hard time. Recidivism among Michigan drug addicts is on the down slope as the result of drug courts, and we're finally treating instead of punishing.
That said, it's a tremendous comfort to know that Michigan is working to nurture that method of progressive justice. Last Wednesday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a package of bills which included the planned expansion of the state's drug court system effective Jan. 1, 2005. Of this country's 1,000-plus drug courts in operation, Michigan has 40, with 21 in various stages of planning. If states that do not employ comparable systems of justice for nonviolent drug offenders - bearing in mind prison populations are at an all-time high - we encourage them to look to Michigan as an example of how to really win the war on drugs.
The seemingly bipartisan bill has since elicited productive dialogue. Keeping in line with Granholm's crusade against crime, drug court expansion could turn jailed felons into productive members of the community. The governor said she hopes this expansion will do more to chisel away the connection between drugs and violent crime, and presumably, this offers the state a fantastic opportunity to streamline its drug court system to optimum efficiency. This is truly a bill package with an overwhelmingly positive connotation for Michigan residents.
Perhaps the sentiment behind this bill package can best be summed up by former President Jimmy Carter's address to Congress in 1977, "Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."
Drug courts are the product of that steadfast belief in how we treat our nation's nonviolent drug users. Addiction is a disease before it is a crime, and it's prudent we continue to treat it as such.
