Written by Tara Andrews, director of the Maryland Justice Coalition, and Vincent Schiraldi, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, the opinion piece urges Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to "join his colleagues in improving public safety and saving taxpayer's dollars in the process."

In Texas, Republican Gov. Rick Perry recently signed legislation sending nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison. GOP Gov. Mike Engler in Louisiana OK'd returning drug sentencing discretion to judges, and many other Republican-run states have closed prisons and looked for alternatives to incarceration. "Like so many Nixons going to China, Republican policymakers are rethinking prison expenditures for nonviolent and drug offenders and changing public policy," Andrews and Schiraldi wrote.

In the past legislative session, Ehrlich became the first Republican governor to sign a law reducing penalties for the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Andrews and Schiraldi said the governor should move forward in the next session with other drug-reform policies, such as providing first-time, nonviolent drug offenders with treatment instead of jail, returning sentencing discretion to judges, and requiring the state corrections department to reform its parole system.

"The reason Republicans are taking the lead on drug-policy reform is not just because it saves money, although it does. It is because putting appropriate, carefully selected offenders into treatment instead of incarceration gets both tough and smart on crime. If they can do it in Texas, we can do it in Maryland," wrote Andrews and Schiraldi.

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