DRUG WAR ORPHANS JUST COLLATERAL DAMAGE?

President Bush recently nominated John Walters as chief of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Mr. Walters has made the
statement that "strict law enforcement is essential to keep users off
the streets and to shame them into seeking treatment."

Mr. Walters has also defended the records of former Presidents Reagan
and Bush, saying their advances in the drug fight were reversed by
what Mr. Walters has called the Clinton administration's "halfhearted"
efforts in the war on drugs.

I'm not sure what his definition of "halfhearted efforts" is. Perhaps
Mr. Walters thinks more citizens should have been incarcerated? The
United States now leads the world at incarcerating its citizens,
passing the 2 million mark thanks in part to mandatory sentencing drug
laws that targeted first-time nonviolent drug offenders. Maybe Mr.
Walters thinks there should have been more no-knock home invasions
(drug raids).

One can only guess what our new drug czar has in store to demonstrate
what a "wholehearted" effort might look like.

Locking up more citizens to shame them into seeking treatment sounds
like a modern-day witch hunt. Locking up more people will create more
drug war orphans - at last count there were roughly 2.5 million kids
with one or both parents locked up in a county, state or federal facility.

Maybe President Bush did not have these children in mind when he said,
"No child will be left behind." I guess these kids are just
"collateral damage" on the war on some drugs.

Jimmy Green, Houston