Opinion ID: 1893409
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Local Statutory Scheme

Text: Our local statutory scheme is not unlike the federal. Possession of heroin is a criminal offense, D.C.Code 1973, § 33-402, and treatment is statutorily available to drug addicts, D.C.Code 1973, § 24-601 et seq. This latter statute, the Narcotic Rehabilitation Act, demonstrates clearly that Congress did not intend treatment to substitute for conviction for possession by addicts of heroin but rather that addicts be given no exemption from conviction: The purpose of sections 24-601 to 24-611 is to protect the health and safety of the people of the District of Columbia from the menace of drug addiction and to afford an opportunity to the drug user for rehabilitation. The Congress intends that Federal Criminal laws shall be enforced against drug users as well as other persons, and [the Act] shall not be used to substitute treatment for punishment in cases of crime committed by drug users. D.C.Code 1973, § 24-601. (Emphasis added.) Prior to the passage of the Narcotic Rehabilitation Act in 1953, the only available treatment was as part of a criminal sentence. With the passage of the Act addicts not charged with a crime could seek treatment through civil procedures. As Congressman Miller, the author and floor manager of the bill, explained: . . . The addict[s] should not be forced to go through a criminal procedure as they do now in many States and suffer this stigma in order to get adequate treatment for their addiction. [99 Cong.Rec.2240, 2241.] The purpose of the Narcotic Rehabilitation Act was only to provide a civil commitment procedure for drug users. The Act operates independently of the criminal system. [The federal] NARA went further and provided for civil commitment even of persons charged with crimes, in the case of crimes deemed related to drug abuse (with certain exceptions), United States v. Moore, supra at 407, 486 F.2d at 1171 (Leventhal, J., concurring), whereas those addicts in the local criminal justice system are treated at penal institutions or through conditions of probation [34] and parole. [35] This statute contemplates full enforcement of the criminal laws against habitual drug users as well as other persons. In the absence of impelling constitutional considerations it is not our role to supplant the legislative judgment. Congress' avowed intent to prosecute and convict drug users where indicated for all crime necessarily nullifies this court's authority to formulate a new common law rule of criminal responsibility which would insulate those same drug users from criminal punishment, even if we were so inclined which, for reasons that will appear, we are not.