When Michael Douglas's son, Cameron, was arrested last summer for possession of crystal meth, the celebrity tabloids went nuts, speculating on what might happen to this high-profile player in the so-called "war on drugs."

While on house arrest, Douglas's girlfriend was caught attempting to deliver 20 bags of heroin to her boyfriend in the battery compartment of an electric toothbrush. Talk about tempting fate. Back in August, a few weeks after the arrest, Vanity Fair reported that some sources were predicting a minimum of 10 years for the 31-year old actor.

Last week, a sentence was decided, and that's exactly what he got. Ten years for selling "several pounds" of crystal meth over the past few years to buyers who have implicated Douglas to lessen charges against themselves, and also for attempting to use while under house arrest.

Anthony Papa, whose book 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom recounts the author's own experience being jailed for delivering drugs to undercover police officers and his subsequent 12 years of hard time at the Sing Sing Correctional Institution, argues that sending Douglas to prison is going to cause more harm than good. Devoting resources to incarcerating drug offenders, rather than to treatment, he says, only diverts our attention, energy, and funds away from violent crime. As a result, he concludes, our "justice system" ensures no such thing.

Papa believes that no one benefits from Douglas doing 10 years, and that the sentence may even contribute to the drug problem in this country. Papa spoke with a friend of Douglas's, who said that Douglas had been an addict for several years, no doubt clouding his judgment and leading him to deal drugs to support his habit.

While I doubt that Papa would condone dealing meth, his argument points to the root of America's drug problem: merely trimming the rotten leaves of a diseased tree won't stop the tree from sprouting new ones, and potentially spreading its disease to other trees.

Two months ago, I may have agreed only in part with Papa. Crystal meth is a horrendous drug, wreaking havoc on this country like no other in the history of addictive substances. I'd have said that I agree that we need to devote more resources to treatment than imprisonment, but that dealing crystal meth is an especially damnable offense.

Then I read Nick Reding's book Methland, which details the extent to which crystal methamphetamine reflects a series of failings that reach all the way to the federal government, Big Pharma, and immigration policy.

No, Douglas is not innocent, and his offense should not be forgiven. But will sending him to prison do anything to stop more people from falling prey to a drug that more than 300,000 people try for the first time each year?

[Image: NYPost.com]