Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1612/a11.html?41373

A DRUG LAW OVERHAUL

As you note in "A Better Approach to Drug Offenders" (editorial, Oct. 26),
treatment is more effective and cheaper than incarceration. But
California's Proposition 36, like a proposal in New York to establish a new
apparatus of "drug courts," is the wrong approach.

As you point out, if offenders fail the drug court treatment, they are then
faced with felony criminal charges. What changed? Drug users are repeatedly
arrested. Why on one occasion do they deserve treatment, and on another
occasion they deserve imprisonment?

Drug users who want treatment should receive it. The mass incarceration of
drug users in New York and California must be ended, but drug courts are
not the answer. Decriminalization of drug possession is the answer.

Robert L. Cohen, M.D. New York