“This project isn’t for fringy, ponytailed pot smokers.”
That is the (slightly amusing assessment of Roger Goodman, the director of the King County bar association’s Drug Policy Project.
And from the sounds of the project, that isn’t far off.
Since 2000 the King County Bar Association has been calling for a major overhaul on the status quo surround drugs - a situation that they maintain was clogging up the local court system with petty drug cases and reducing the amount of time able to be spent on more important cases.
King County is sending minor street drug users and sellers through drug
courts instead of incarcerating them; its average daily jail count is
down from 2,800 to 2,000. The Washington Legislature was persuaded to
cut back drastically on mandatory drug-possession sentences,
apportioning funds to adult and juvenile drug courts, and family
“dependency” courts. Tens of millions of dollars have been saved.
The approach to this system seems far more akin to pragmatic realism than any particular adherence to oft quoted arguments concerning harm reduction, decriminalisation and the like.
With the success this system is having in reducing stress on the court system, not to mention the incarceration rate, should we be looking to humble King County for a lead?