I am running for the House to raise awareness of addictive disease and it’s impact on every family in Oregon. 9 yrs. ago I lost a son to addiction – a suicide. 1 in 5 pre-adolescents has the disease response to their first experiments with substance abuse. This is where we must impact this epidemic of addictive disease. We must make this culture shift from criminal to medical.

We must begin with the Corrections Division where we provide treatment in 6 of 14 prisons in a population where substance abuse is identified in 75% of the population. Over $80,000 per inmate and we are not treating a treatable cause of criminal behavior. We must begin to offer children and their parents a medical option to this problem. Treatment works and is far less expensive and far more effective than punishment. Measure 11 is not why violent crime rates are less: Salem now has 2 dozen Oxford Houses and counting, 10 yrs ago there was one, these recovery houses are a phenonenon all over the country, supported entirely by the residents – as usual, government will be the last to know. Also, Head Start and similar programs for children at an early age are beginning to show results. Our Corrections system is a disgrace – almost 17,000 inmates at over $80,000 per inmate to punish and then re-introduce to society a far worse criminal than when orginally sentenced.

We must begin to restrict this pipeline to prison and welfare at the pre-adolescent stage. Punishment after the disease is established is very expensive and fruitless. We do have the science to seperate the criminal from the illness. Portugal began the process in 2001, the police departments were initially opposed and two years later they became univeral supporters of the concept: “We can now concentrate on crime, it’s why i came to this profession.” Lisbon police veteran.