WASTE OF OFFICERS

JOHN King's Dec. 15 letter ["County, state jails full up/Impact on
'hood' "] about jail overcrowding was wrong in many respects.

In contrast to his statement that the public wants to see "criminals
locked up," the fact is that polls consistently show that most people
do not want to see our prisons and jail cells filled with people
incarcerated for simple possession of small amounts of drugs.

Ten out of ten local communities voted in the last election to tell
their police to make marijuana enforcement their "lowest priority."

Annually, we make more than 1.5 million drug arrests, more than 80
percent of these for simple possession of minuscule amounts.

Almost half are for marijuana -- more arrests than for all violent
crimes put together. Also, drug laws have severely decreased the
effectiveness of our courts and police through this overload.

King says he works with addicts, but the vast majority of illegal
drug users never become addicted and harm no one. Alcohol is the
culprit in about 80 percent of serious drug addictions, and it
accounts for more deaths than all illegal drugs combined; yet, most
of us use alcohol with no problem.

When all drugs were legal, alcohol was always the biggest
problem.

The National Academy of Sciences says that existing research
indicates there is "little apparent relationship between severity of
sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use,
and that perceived legal risk explains very little in the variance
of individual drug use."

The sort of prevention and treatment needed (mostly mental health
care) is only damaged by the diversion of funds to ineffectual police
actions.

Jerry Epstein

board of directors, Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Houston