Some might call this an "alternative to incarceration" for marijuana possession that "increases access to treatment" for marijuana rather than sending people to jail or saddling them with a record. BUT IT'S NOT. (A thread) https://twitter.com/sarah_ziggy/status/1343697609739759616

1) The majority of ppl who use marijuana do not meet criteria for a cannabis use disorder. According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 4.8 million ppl met criteria for a cannabis use disorder while 31.6 million ppl used in the past month https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt29393/2019NSDUHFFRBriefSlides082120.pdf

2) The program would require a substance use assessment and completion of recommended treatment. (I used to do these assessments for an agency in my former life- we were often encouraged to stretch a diagnosis to justify minimal outpatient treatment)

3) The logic was, if someone got arrested for possession, they "must" have a drug problem in some way and treatment "wouldn't hurt."

But here's the thing - treatment is actually expensive in a country without nationalized healthcare AND there are few RCTs of treatments for CUD

4) Whenever you require treatment completion as part of an "alternative to incarceration"/drug court/whatever, you force someone without insurance to pay out of pocket for mandated treatment or they get a charge, maybe jail.

5) In small towns, this also means you're stuck with whatever treatment options are available in town. In a state like Iowa, I'm not sure how easy it is to find a clinic that may have accessible treatment on your schedule. Or offering approaches that you prefer. You're stuck.

6) Also- this policy, while appearing "race neutral" is not. It still says that enrollment is discretionary and there are strict eligibility criteria. Implicit racial bias often impacts who gets access to alternatives to incarceration and who doesn't.

7) In April, the @ACLU released an excellent report on racial arrest disparities for marijuana in the US.

Nationally, Black people are 3.6 times more likely to get arrested thank white people for marijuana.

IN IOWA, BLACK PPL ARE 7.3 TIMES MORE LIKELY https://graphics.aclu.org/marijuana-arrest-report/IA

8) One of the eligibility criteria for this program is having no prior history. This is fundamentally a racist criteria- less than 9% of Iowans are Black, but going off of marijuana charges alone, we know that they are more likely to have a record bc of policing practices.

9) This is what makes me think that this program was really designed for privileged (likely white) young Iowans who get caught for marijuana once and get "taught a lesson" through completing treatment and being threatened with a charge but don't get a record.

10) If the program really wanted to meet its aim of reducing the use of court resources, they could easily decriminalize marijuana or deprioritize prosecuting marijuana possession as an offense. But that wouldn't make any money for the treatment industry, so...

11) Some say, "So what? NO ONE gets arrested for marijuana anymore."

In 2019, over 1.5 MILLION arrests were for drug charges. A THIRD of these arrests were just for marijuana possession.

In the Midwest, 40.4% of all drug arrests were for marijuana https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/arrest-table.xls

12) I'll stop here. Don't be fooled by "alternatives" to incarceration. Not everyone has a substance use disorder. Not everyone should have to choose between treatment or jail. Not everyone gets prosecuted for drugs equally.

These are still pathways to incarceration. FIN.

A little while ago I tweeted a similar thread about the challenges with drug courts (but this applies to most “problem” or “issue” based courts)

Check it out here: https://twitter.com/i/events/1335643502500319232?s=21