But a quick high was tempting, and Seattle Police were waiting with fresh bait. Using a sophisticated buy-bust operation, Seattle Police arrest hundreds like Holt every year. Holt, a repeat drug offender, was sentenced last week to five years in prison. The nation is obsessed by violent and brutal crimes, but small-time drug addicts are often the ones occupying valuable court time and prison beds. Between 1989 and 1992, more people were sent to state prisons nationwide for drug offenses than for all violent crimes.
Drug offenders are the fastest-growing population in Washington prisons.
Many judges and lawyers are deeply troubled by the trend and say low-level drug cases are clogging the judicial system without putting much of a dent in crime. But police officials and neighborhood leaders say drug enforcement is just as important now as a decade ago, when spawned as President Reagan's war on drugs. The state Senate on Friday approved House Bill 1549, a proposal by the state Sentencing Guidelines Commission to give judges the flexibility to cut sentences in half for first time drug offenders and order drug rehabilitation and community supervision. The bill, approved recently by the GOP-controlled House, marks the first major change in statewide drug enforcement since the 1989 Drug Omnibus Act. It's not that these guys shouldn't be serving time in prison, but this is a very expensive way to punish them.