Lawmakers consider lower drug penalties
Sides argue whether threat of jail is needed for treatment to work.
The Ohio legislature is considering a bill its bipartisan supporters say would encourage treatment and reduce penalties for drug addicts who are not also dangerous drug dealers.
Senate Bill 3, if passed, would do the following:
■ Reclassify possession of drugs for personal use as a misdemeanor, rather than a felony. Drug trafficking offenses would remain felonies.
■ Allow judges to dismiss a criminal possession case if a defendant successfully completes court-ordered treatment.
■ Permit the records of misdemeanor and low-level felony drug possessions to be sealed after the offender completes a treatment program.
The reforms are similar, but not identical, to Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment on the Ohio ballot in 2018 that failed with 63% of the electorate voting no.
Senate Bill 3 passed the Ohio Senate in June and is currently in the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee. The bill must pass by the end of the year or it will have to be reintroduced during the next legislative session beginning in 2021.
Advocates for SB3 testifying during a committee hearing on Nov. 19 said that treatment, not incarceration, will help address Ohio’sdrugepidemic, whichevery year claims thousands of lives.
“Putting people in cages does not make them better,” said Stephen JohnsonGrove, the strategy director for Ohio Transformation Fund. “SenateBill 3would simply be a very modest step away from using incarceration as a strategy to deal with a health problem.”
Critics of the bill have said the threat of a felony and incarceration are important tools for incentivizing treatment.
Paulding County Sheriff Jason Landers testified during the Nov. 19 hearing that the drug court his countyimplementedfiveyearsago would not have been successful