The United States, like most other nations, treats drug possession and use
as a crime punishable by jail time. As of 2020, 1 out of 5 people in prison
are there for drug use (which comes to almost half a million people).
[1]&This incarceration can have life-long effects and it is not clear that it is
an efficient deterrent to drug use. McQuilken and Copan ask, “Perhaps
there are other creative ways to match the crime with appropriate
deprivation of something of value other than freedom to live in normal
society.”[2]
Portugal is one nation that has invested in an alternative solution to drug
use. “In 2001, Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs for personal
consumption and has since reported positive results in combating drug
addiction, related health problems, and drug trafficking.”[3]&In addition to
decriminalizing drug use, Portugal expanded health care and treatment
options for addicts, implemented convenient syringe exchanges, and
guaranteed voluntary treatment as an alternative to criminal penalties.
Instead of jail time, “the penalties [for addicted users] can include:
ineligibility for the practice of certain occupations requiring licenses[. . .]
restrictions on foreign travel; periodic presentation at a place indicated by
the commission (usually for medical services); ineligibility for firearm
licenses; seizure of objects that represent a risk to the consumer or the
public or that would encourage the commission of a crime or other
offense; termination of public benefits for subsidies or allowances;
mandatory donation to a charitable organization; or required hours of
community service.”[4]&This change has significantly reduced drug
consumption, drug-influenced crimes, and Portugal’s prison population (by
almost 23%).[5]
Switching from penal penalties to more socially oriented solutions seems
to fit McQuilken and Copan’s purpose of punishment. It has a significant
emphasis on rehabilitation; there is restitution made when appropriate,
which supports justice; the reduction in crime and the diseases that come
from dirty needles helps protect the innocent; and the risk of losing rights
and benefits works as a deterrence. These consequences are also equally
enforced and are appropriate to the individual offense.
As Christians, we should be at the forefront of the effort to address the
social inequality of the US prison system. If the initial problems that lead
to drug use could be addressed here as they are in Portugal, before the
serious crimes that should lead to prison occur, an entire society could be
changed. If the massive number of young black men currently
incarcerated were helped to recover from their addiction, taught a moral
compass that fits the Biblical model along with receiving concrete help in
getting past the issues that led them to addiction and escapism in the first
place, and given appropriate penalties when necessary, it would change
our entire society. Instead of an entire generation of men being scarred by
the prison system and being missing from their families and communities,
they could be productive and supportive contributors of society as a
whole.
(485 words)
&
&
[1]&Prison Policy Initiative, Mass
Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020, March
24, 2020.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2
020.html
[2]&Robert McQuilkin and Paul Copan,&An Introduction to Biblical Ethics:
Walking in the Way of Wisdom,&(Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013),
437.
[3]&Kellen Russoniello, "The Devil (and Drugs) in the Details: Portugal's
Focus on Public Health as a Model for Decriminalization of Drugs in
Mexico," Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics 12, no. 2 (Summer
2012): 374.
[4]&Russoniello, “The Devil (and Drugs), 387.
[5]&Russoniello, “The Devil (and Drugs), 394.
