Athens prosecutor suggests option to Issue 1

In his time as Athens County Prosecutor, Keller Blackburn said he’s made combating Ohio’s addiction epidemic a priority.

From starting the state’s first program using Vivitrol — a drug designed to prevent relapse for opioid addiction — to taking down drug traffickers, Blackburn said he has seen a serious need for drug reform.

Issue 1, however, is not the reform that Ohio needs, Blackburn said.

In a letter Friday to Rep. Ryan Smith, a Republican from Bidwell, Blackburn proposed Ohio Fresh Start, an alternative approach to handling drug-related offenses that he says would be a more-holistic approach. He asked Smith to call a special session of the legislature to consider it.

If voters approve Issue 1 on Nov. 6, a constitutional amendment would reclassify low-level felonies for drug use and possession to misdemeanors that carry no time behind bars and refer addicts to treatment. The problem with that, Blackburn said, is that Issue 1 focuses on possession of drugs, not the problems from which possession stems.

“People often ask, ‘Who is going to be tough on crime?’ But I say, ‘Who is going to be fair to these addicts?’” Blackburn said.

The Ohio Fresh Start plan would change the definition of drug-related crime and provide judges and district attorneys with a flexible and hybrid set of sentencing guidelines, Blackburn said.

Unlike Issue 1, Fresh Start would maintain felony status for some drug possession. That’s in part to allow any existing infrastructures to keep providing and expanding services.

The cornerstone of Ohio Fresh Start would create a new offense called possession of harmful drugs, which would be punishable by five years of community control, jail sanctions of no more than 45 days at a time, residential treatment and community- based correctional facility stays that could not exceed a total of 12 months.

After one year of successful completion of an approved treatment plan, offenders would have the ability to have their records expunged.

Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith said in a written statement that he thinks the proposal strikes a balance between enforcement and treatment that would allow law enforcement to protect neighborhoods.