TREAT ADDICTED CRIMINALS

Thank God that White House drug policy director Gen. Barry McCaffrey
recognizes the war on drugs has failed and we must pursue a more sensible
policy.

In an address he delivered recently, McCaffrey stated that 85 percent of
the 1.8 million prisoners in America were there because of addiction
problems. He emphasized there is a critical need for treatment. Scientific
research indicates addiction and substance abuse may be permanently
eliminated. Those who have studied this research are convinced addiction is
a disease and prison is the wrong place for addicts.

In fact, one of the great mental health institutions in America, the
Menninger Clinic in Kansas, has devised programs that are departures from
traditional treatment.

In several hundred drug courts throughout our country in which treatment,
rather than punishment, is the goal, former addicts have been permanently
cured.

In Kansas, programs in the criminal courts have achieved an 83 percent
success rate. The drug court in Tucson, administered by Judge Leslie
Miller, has also achieved a large degree of success because of treatment
and education.

If all addicted criminals were treated, billions could be saved in prison
construction, confinement costs and related violent crime, including school
violence.

Above all, these adults will become productive and law-abiding citizens who
may be enabled to work and pay taxes.

With treatment, those who have lost hope in themselves may once again
regain their spirit and self-esteem. We will then be able to get rid of
drug dealers and the tremendous profits in the commerce of drugs.