Analyze This: Re-Modeling Drug Policy
Among the conclusions of the new book, “An Analytical Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy, published by the free-market conservative think tank, American Enterprise Institute, is that “Long sentences for minor, non-violent drug offenders are perhaps the least defensible aspect of current drug policy.” While the book covers the entire scope of America’s war on drugs, several conclusions and recommendations relate to Colorado’s own unsustainable drug policies.
Take the F Word Out
In 2003, the Colorado Legislature took a tentative step towards sentencing reform for small time drug offenses by passing Senate Bill 03-318 (SB-318), which lowered the penalty for simple use and possession (one gram or less) of most illegal drugs to the class-6 felony sentencing range, the lowest felony class in Colorado’s presumptive sentencing structure, carrying between one to one and a half years in prison. The law ties the changes to corrections cost savings, which must be realized and transferred to a drug offender treatment fund by 2007.
Concentrate on the Big Dealers
Colorado has long depended on federal assistance in carrying out the states drug control strategy, which is mostly a supply side, interdiction and incarceration model. A significant piece of that assistance may be coming to an end, and Colorado may need to re-think its drug war priorities and tactics.
Utah Gains Special Needs Vouchers
Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. signed HB249, the Carson Smith Scholarships for Students With Special Needs Act. The scholarships allow students with Individual Education Plans to take as much as $5,700 of public funds for tuition at a participating private school. For more details please see the Institute for Justice Press Release and the text of […]
Who Will Protect the Patients?
If Senate Bill 22 passes, who will protect the patients?
Will it be the unpaid, politically-appointed 14 member pharmacy and therapeutics committee, which was created to recommend “allowable” drugs for Colorado Medicaid patients? This committee is supposed to pick treatments based on effectiveness results. Results from randomized clinical trials, national guidelines, clinical results, costs and from the kickbacks that can be wrung from drug manufacturers. Setting aside the fact that randomized clinical trials take forever, are few in number and, for arcane statistical reasons, tend to find against new drugs, such complex selection criteria mean, that in practice this committee will pretty much do as it likes.
Politically appointed committees put government interests first.
The Ignacio Market Driven Compensation Plan and Why It Fell Short
Colorado local school boards, unlike those in many states, determine their districts’ salary schedules. Most school districts pay teachers strictly according to the number of years served and the amount of postgraduate educational credit and degrees attained. Notable exceptions include Douglas County R-1, which has operated a performance pay system for teachers since 1994, and Denver Public Schools, which awaits a November 2005 vote on a mill-levy increase to approve funding for its “ProComp” plan. But the Ignacio School District 11JT in southwestern Colorado went a step further when it unveiled a unique and innovative teacher compensation proposal in February 2003.
Abusing Public Resources, Trampling Teachers' Rights
Colorado teachers’ union officials have funded the campaigns of their endorsed political candidates at the expense of some unsuspecting teachers and supported the campaigns using taxpayer-funded resources.
Adams 12 School District Increases Subsidy
While renegotiating its collective bargaining agreement in 2004, Northglenn-Thornton School District No. 12 (Adams 12) agreed to allow more paid leave days to teachers’ union representatives and more extended leave to union officers. Adams 12 thus increased the taxpayer subsidy to the union by nearly 17 percent in one year. Many other Colorado school districts that already subsidize union activities through paid release time are bargaining their open agreements in 2005. Both local district policy makers and state legislators should work to prevent any diversion of taxpayer funds to the union’s private purposes.
