Published: July 20, 2009 07:51 pm      

In Your View — 07/21/09

Shock probation was appropriate

The recent decision to grant shock probation to the Kentucky State Police trooper who became addicted to pain killers after an on-duty injury gives us an opportunity to discuss the community's response to addiction-driven crime.

Our criminal justice system is built on the idea of “the bigger stick.” If a citizen engages in unlawful behavior, we will employ the bigger stick and do something unpleasant to the citizen. The idea is that people will forgo the behavior because the threat of the bigger stick makes it in their best interest to do so.

Addiction-driven crime is manifestly different. As any smoker who continued to smoke after having “the serious talk” with their doctor can attest, addiction changes the way your brain works. Addiction-driven crime is not deterred by threat of future unpleasant state action. For an addict, nothing that might happen to him later is more frightening than no drugs now.

Asking the cumbersome mechanisms of the criminal law to address addiction is like repairing a delicate watch using only sledge hammers. The results are guaranteed to be unsuccessful.

The officer did not wake up one day, after 18 years of faithful service and say, “I wanna be a drug addict.” He was injured on-duty and only found out when it was too late that his particular body chemistry made him highly susceptible to addiction to a drug which many have taken with no such effect.

As commonwealth’s attorney, I recommended concurrent sentencing with the federal system because they have a highly effective addiction treatment program, which he took advantage of. Judge Rosen is correct that further incarceration serves no purpose.

It's time that we move these matters into the medical arena before we bankrupt the state while trying to address the problem in an inappropriate way.

J. Stewart Schneider, Former Boyd County commonwealth’s attorney



Chestnut’s decline had several causes

Let’s not oversimplify the cause of the dramatic declines in the American chestnut populations in the Eastern Deciduous Forests (EDF).

While the blight definitely had an impact on the tree, there have been other forest dynamics that have also contributed to the demise of the chestnut.

One of the most significant changes has been the role of fire in the EDF. Tree ring data shows that fires were a natural part of the ecosystem occurring every 5-10 years. However, in the early 1900s the U.S. Forest Service managed the EDF and effectively removed fires from the ecosystems.

Furthermore, tree ring data shows that in the last 500 years there have been significant multiyear drought events, while none have occurred in the last 100 years.

Another contributing factor has been the quick extinction of the passenger pigeon. The massive numbers of the birds in the EDF have been described as natural managers of the forests by breaking down limbs and allowing space/light for chestnut saplings to flourish.

Finally, with the rise in the population of people and industrialization over the last 100 years, land use and practice have significantly changed, allowing ample opportunity for invasive and exotic species to move into the EDF understory and choke out the chestnut saplings. Therefore, while the blight has been important, forest and ecosystem dynamics are too complicated to attribute the decline in chestnut numbers to one single cause.

Daniel Deborde, Russell



No. 2 in spending, No. 37 in quality

I have noticed a lot of comments on health care reform on the opinion page lately. I wonder if the rush to pass this health care reform is because the “powers that be” figure the American taxpayer is so numb or dumbfounded from the AIG bailout, selected bank bailouts, auto bailouts, massive layoffs, etc. that another trillion or so dollars won’t faze us.

Hey, those Wall Street guys don’t alleviate pain and suffering or perform operations. Although you must admit, you are a smooth operator if you can run your private company into the ground and get taxpayer money to bail you out plus a bonus. But I digress.

The World Health Organization's ranking of the world’s health systems in 2000 placed the U.S.A. at No. 37 out of 190 countries. As of 2005 the U.S.A. was No. 2 in the percentage of GPD it spent on health care. The Marshall Islands beat us out by .02 percent. Hey, no shame there.

Medical bills are the number one reason Americans are finally pushed into bankruptcy — whether they have health insurance or not.

I think we should first pinpoint exactly why the U.S. spends the most money in the world on health care, yet ranks 37th in delivering that care to you and me. Let’s start there first. Address that problem then move on.

I could go on and on, but, I fear a call from former Sen. Phil Gramm saying, “I have a mental recession and am just one of those whiners.” He would bill me, but my insurance wouldn’t cover it.

Charles Joyce, Honolulu, Hawaii



Justice ill served by woman’s sentence

The July 17 story about Christina Craft made me more angry than anything I have ever read in this paper. This woman, who is probably not guilty of anything more than being an irresponsible mother, is going to spend 20 years in prison based on the testimony of two impressionable little girls manipulated by their grandparents.

Worst of all, shes not going to prison for child abuse (that would have gotten her only five years). No, shes in prison because that’s the minimum sentence for sodomy. an “offense” which is not even considered a crime in her home state of Ohio (it was repealed in 1974 there).

The grandparents may take better care of those children than Ms. Craft did, but the way they gained custody is reprehensible. Children’s testimony is notoriously unreliable — certainly enough to demand other evidence before convicting someone.

What if your babysitter or mother-in-law convinced your young child that you had abused him or her? You could end up in prison, with no chance of parole for 171/2 years. When you came out, you would be denied the right to see your children, labeled as a sex offender, shunned by the community — it would completely ruin your life.

Even if Ms. Craft is guilty, the way her case was handled was a grave miscarriage of justice. I hope that future juries are more cautious when holding someone's future in their hands.

Jessica Hurst, Ashland



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