IT'S TIME MASS. FIXED DRUG LAWS

THANK YOU FOR your front-page story on the many benefits of drug treatment
versus long prison sentences for low-level drug offenses ("Officials say
prisons don't win drug wars," Page A1, April 17).

Massachusetts deserves the reductions in prison overcrowding, recidivism,
and costs that Brooklyn has achieved through this one simple measure.

The good news is that Massachusetts can have these benefits if it passes
one of the bills on that topic currently making their way through
committees at the State House.

The bills would remove the most controversial aspects of last November's
initiative Question 8. What better way to save tax dollars than be reducing
drug abuse and crime?

- -- RILEY HART, Arlington, MA