Governors-Elect Consider Cutting Drug Programs -- Why Not Legalize Pot

Florida's Republican Governor-Elect Rick Scott is cutting jobs in the Office of Drug Control created by former Governor Jeb Bush. South Dakota's Republican Governor-Elect Dennis Daugaard inherits from his predecessor a proposal to cut meth treatment programs.

I'll invite Mr. Newland to expound further. For now I'll just note that we could probably save a lot more in law enforcement and incracertation costs by legalizing marijuana. At least that's what televangelist Pat Robertson thinks.

SD Youth Risk Survey: Sex, Drugs... But No Questions about Rock and Roll

Well, at least the kids are wearing both straps on their backpacks, like the covergirl from the new South Dakota 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Report. We all know single-strapping is a youth health menace.

2170 high schoolers responded to the survey and told us some other unhealthy activities they are involved in:

• 22% rode in a car with a drunk driver in the last month.
• 27% were in a physical fight in the last year.
• 52% were bullied.
• 7% attempted suicide in the last year.
• 9% were forced to have sex.
• 26% had five alcoholic drinks in a row in the past month. That's 65% of the kids who report drinking any alcohol during the past month. In other words, 2 out of three kids drinking are drinking for the clear purpose of getting schnockered.
  
• 36% had sex during the past three months (I know, sex isn't inherently an unhealthy activity...)
• ...24% of those sexually active students drank or did drugs before doing the deed, and 38% didn't use a condom (o.k., that's unhealthy).
• 49% skipped breakfast three or more times in the past week.

On the good side:

• 77% didn't smoke during the past month.
• 58% of those who have smoked recently have tried to quit.
• 64% played some team sport during the past year.
• 77% watched less than three hours of TV a day.
• 80% were on the computer or the XBox for less than three hours a day.
• The percentage riding with drunk drivers (22%) has gone down every survey year since 2003, when the percentage was 37%. The state is apparently getting the message across to some kids and parents.
• Smoking has been trending downward, too.

Read the full PDF-format report here. Then tell your kids no beer for graduation.

Republican A.G. Proposes Government Takeover of Health Care

U.S. House GOP candidate Thad Wasson frets over a health care bill that would give the feds "control over the entire health care system." In the next breath, he says we must maintain Medicare.

I have yet to see any bill in Congress that creates complete government-run health care. However, I do see South Dakota Attorney General and good Republican Marty Jackley wants control over your prescription drugs. Evidently prescription drug abuse investigations have almost tripled since 2007. Plus, we're looking like a bunch of rubes to out-of-town pharmacists. So AG Jackley would like to create a big database of prescriptions, apparently so the nice folks in Pierre will know you're taking your medicine and not Rush Limbaugh's.

So, conservative friends, will you accept this clear bit of government control of health care for the sake of the war on drugs?

SD Corrections Secretary Reisch: Prison Numbers "Out of Control"

A few weeks ago, Drs. Newquist and Blanchard offered an enlightening discussion about South Dakota's burgeoning prison population. South Dakota Corrections Secretary Tim Reisch agrees there's a problem in the increasing number of people for whom his department has to take responsibility. In a story that didn't get much online attention last week (I can't find a full active copy online), Secretary Reisch discussed the growing expense of corrections in South Dakota and nationwide. (I quote at length, because it's interesting!)

In South Dakota, about 30 percent of inmates released wind up returning to prison within a year, 39 percent within two years, and 45 percent within three years, according to Corrections Department records.

Reisch said South Dakota's average daily adult prison population has risen from 2,267 in 1998 to a projected 3,451 this year....

"That's a lot of beds. That's a lot of mouths to feed," the corrections secretary said. "Many of these people have been in prison before."

The growing prison population forces the state and local governments to spend a lot of taxpayers' money that could be diverted to other programs if so many inmates did not return to prison, Reisch said.

The Corrections Department budget has risen from $49.4 million a decade ago to $108.7 million this year, he said. While it costs nearly $69 a day to keep an inmate in the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Fals, it costs only $3.65 a day to supervise someone on parole.

The United States leads the world in putting people in prison, with more than 700 out of each 100,000 people behind bars, Reisch said.

In South Dakota, one in every 104 adults is in prison or jail, which ranks South Dakota 25^th among the states, Reisch said.

A study by the PEW Center on the States found that one in 31 U.S. citizens are in prison or jail or on probation or parole, Reisch said. "This corrections thing has really gotten out of control" ["Panel Works to Keep Released Inmates from Returning to Jail," AP via Madison Daily Leader, 2009.03.27, p. 7].

The article notes that over half of the 2,072 South Dakota inmates released in 2007 did their time mainly for drugs or drunk driving. I like to think giving drunk drivers and druggies some time to think about their crimes in a nice quiet cinderblock room, but the recidivism numbers seem to say otherwise.

When budgets are tight and even our corrections secretary says the "corrections thing" is "out of control," we need to look for other options. Maybe we serve society and the state budget better by expanding the Attorney General's 24/7 Sobriety Program—if we have the money and personpower to lock a few thousand people up and feed them three squares a day, we have the resources to manage a few thousand more urine tests or monitoring bracelets. Maybe we serve restorative justice better by putting more drinkers and dopers on a tight leash but leaving them out in the workforce where they can contribute to the economy and pay their victims back (if their crimes had any direct victims).

No criminal deserves a free pass. But society deserves a good return on its corrections investment. When parole or similar supervision costs a twentieth of incarceration, we should look for more ways to take advantage of such programs to straighten out criminals and our aching state budget.

McCain Addiction to Privilege More Troubling Than Addiction to Painkillers

My wife mentioned over supper yesterday that Cindy McCain, second wife of GOP Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, is a drug addict. I looked up from my chips, wondering if DailyKos had replaced Prairie Roots at my dinner table. Nope: same sensible lady I woke up with.

Cindy McCain herself openly admitted her addiction to Percocet and Vicodin in the Arizona press in 1994. The public confession came in an effort to get out in front of potential bad press from a Drug Enforcement Agency investigation looking into whether Mrs. McCain had defrauded her own medical charity to obtain bogus prescriptions—basically, she was stealing drugs to feed her addiction.

Now my wife isn't into the politics of personal destruction. She leans toward the position of Harold Pollack, who writes in the Huffington Post that we ought not trash Cindy McCain for falling victim to an all-too-common medical problem.

What does distinguish the story of Mrs. McCain's addiction is her ability to escape legal consequences. Mrs. McCain paid financial restitution and got treatment, but she never served time, and her husband's lawyers initially got a deal with the DEA to keep the whole matter secret. How many of us commoners would receive such gentle treatment from the law for theft and drug abuse?

Ponder this double standard: Michelle Obama says a few words about her newfound pride in her country (McCain himself would say one's feelings about one's country can change), and attacks fly that we can't trust her or her husband in the White House. Cindy McCain actually breaks the law, violates the trust of her family and her charity, and her wealth and her husband's power win her special deal from the government to protect her reputation as a pillar of the community.

I generally take a personal responsibility line on drug addiction, but I can dig up some sympathy for drug addicts as victims of a medical condition who need help. I have a little harder time finding sympathy for folks who use their wealth and power to escape the punishment regular folks would face.