There are times when nothing useful comes from prison time

An excerpt:

The last time he went to prison - in either late 2005 or early 2006 - it was on a marijuana conviction. A Baltimore County judge sent him away for three years for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it. He had 24 small bags of grass on him when the police caught him. His arrest constituted a violation of probation.

"I did 2 1/2 years on a three-year bit," he says. "If you look on my record, there's a lot of different stuff from when I was younger."

Imagine this: The state budget situation in Maryland is so bad that even $3.7 billion in federal stimulus won't be enough to spare additional cuts in staffing and services, and that includes the state prison system. I guess that, back in the good ole days, when the treasury was flush with revenue, we could afford to send guys to prison for 2 1/2 years for selling marijuana. No wonder we lead the world in incarceration per capita. No wonder our prisons are full.

Even if, in the first place, it made sense to send this guy to prison, nothing useful came of his time there. He had no vocational training, no preparation for re-entry from prison life. It cost Maryland taxpayers about $25,000 a year to keep him in the prisons he mentioned yesterday.

What was the point?

Questioning spending on prisons is not the most politically popular thing to do. That's why almost no one does it, including Democrats regarded as liberals. But you'd think that the new economic reality - this age of supposedly heightened responsibility in government - would force Maryland and all its Obama-supporting Democrats into a little self- examination. Why are we putting anyone with an opiate addiction behind the walls when what they need is medical treatment? Is 50 percent an acceptable rate of recidivism? Why are we just warehousing criminals instead of preparing them for re-entry and a job? What are we doing, sending guys to prison for selling a few bags of marijuana?

It made no sense in good times. It makes none in bad.

As times get tighter, and they no doubt will, we may expect to hear pols talking more about being "Smart on crime!" as opposed to the traditional "Tough on crime!", but this is just papering over the fact that the 'War on Drugs' as it has been waged these past 27 years required vast sums of national 'expendable income', as it produced nothing material but prisons.

Now, that 'expendable income' has vanished like an ice cube in a blowtorch flame. It's time for the old choice of 'guns or butter' when it comes to drug prohibition. We simply cannot afford to keep the DrugWar machinery going any longer, and another approach is in order. And by far the most logical one is the elimination of drug prohibition as we know it.

But seeing as it is singularly useful for politically nullifying minority populations (via voter disenfranchisement for drug offense convictions) and socially ostracizing them (refusal of employment due to past convictions, denial of social services for same, etc.) it's not likely to be ended without a major fight...because it certainly benefits some very powerful political forces. Who have no qualms about using children as ideological (and fiscal) 'human shields' ("The children! The children! Somebody think about the chil-dre-ennnn!") to maintain the 'system'.

But economics (and the bloodshed fostered by drug prohibition) is having the effect that rationality never seems to have had, and very soon I expect there to be more calls for public debate on the issue of illegal drugs, as happened in El Paso recently.