The report, released today, is the work of the grand jury empanelled in January.

The grand jury made four recommendations:

•  Establish a continuum of care for substance abusers in Baltimore,

•  Divert non-violent offenders into a continuum of care rather than incarceration,

•  Make use of criminal citations rather than arrests for certain offenders, and

•  Revisit the idea of regulated distribution.

Earlier this year, a grand jury described the extent and impact of drug use in Baltimore – 60,000 users, nearly 6,000 people charged with felony narcotics violations a year, a cost to the city in the billions – and declared that “(t)o continue on a path of trying to arrest our way out of this epidemic will not work.”

The January 2003 grand jury was charged by Circuit Court Judge Althea M. Handy with exploring the prior jury’s recommendation of more emphasis on treatment.

Copies of the new report are available 
at http://www.courts.state.md.us/publications.html