Man, I really wanted to get through Independence Day without getting so pissed I’d be forced to blog. Then my wife hands me the Sunday Oregonian she’d brought home from work last night, and I should have known better than to read anything but Dilbert and Opus… but then, Doonesbury disses my blogging brethren, so I couldn’t even get out of the comics without a little itch to blog.
So what the hell. This just in from the Metro section:
(OregonLive.com) The man who died after a beating in a Multnomah County jail had turned himself in on drug charges in an effort to change his life, relatives said.
Dennis J. Saban, 43, of Portland died Wednesday night, about two weeks after he was assaulted by his cellmate, a convicted murderer in jail to stand trial for a second murder charge, authorities said.
Saban was beaten on the morning of June 16 by Thomas Allen “Tommy” Gordon, 22, according to authorities. Gordon was convicted of murder in Clark County and had been brought to Oregon to stand trial in the 2001 death of Vernon Ralph Moranville, 38, of Portland.
Gordon had been held in solitary confinement for 15 days after jail officials learned that he was prone to violent outbursts. When Gordon showed no bad behavior, he was placed in a cell with Saban on June 15, said Lt. Mike Shults, a sheriff’s office spokesman.
The piece goes on to interview his relatives, who agreed that Saban had a record, but certainly didn’t deserve to be beaten to death by a convicted murderer. They tell of how Saban had gotten sick of the drug lifestyle, and had turned himself in, hoping to pay his debt to society on his drug charges and take personal responsibility for becomeing a better man.
This story just makes me furious. The place for overcoming drug addiction is treatment, not prison! But even a prohibitionist should agree that a repentant middle-aged druggie shouldn’t housed with a violent young murderer.
Who’s going to be the next drug user to volunteer to turn themselves in? Not bloody likely! It’s just so incredibly amazing how the policy of prohibition actively enhances every negative aspect of the drugs it prohibits. It makes the drug trade lucrative. It encourages more powerful, easier to conceal, more addictive, cheaper drugs. It creates violence. It corrupts law enforcement. It destroys our liberties.
Now prohibition has ruthlessly taken the life of a man — not a perfect man, but who among us are? — who did the right thing, who obeyed the law, who took responsibility, just as surely as the vicious psychopath who did the beating. In a better world, where judges had discretion over sentencing, where treatment alternatives were available, and where people whose only crime is sickness aren’t locked up with murderers, Dennis J. Saban would be alive today.
