Local officials discuss changing state drug-sentencing laws

Staff report

CHAMPION

State senators Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, D-32nd, and John Eklund, a Republican from Geauga County, met with two Mahoning Valley judges, two county probation officials and the Ashtabula County prosecutor to get feedback on Senate Bill 3, which would change drug-sentencing laws.

After the meeting at Kent State at Trumbull campus, the group talked to reporters about the ideas they discussed, mostly focusing on ways to expand treatment and limit the number of addicts who go to prison, which was also a goal of State Issue 1, the initiative that failed last November.

“Our goal is to punish the traffickers but yet help those who are drug dependent,” O’Brien said. He and Eklund have proposed the new laws in Senate Bill 3, which is in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Jeff Adler, Girard Municipal Court judge, said the greatest impact of the bill is the reclassification of certain felony drug offenses to misdemeanors, which will increase the workload on municipal-level drug courts such as his.

“We will need more resources to treat those people,” the judge said. He is “on the fence” about the proposal, but it “brings up the conversation ... what we need to do to confront this drug crisis,” he added.