NO LONGER LAND OF 'FREE'

The current unjust, racist and inhumane application of modern Prohibition --
aside from the personal tragedies involved -- shows how Texans and their
children have been made victims of their own failure to protest our
legislator's policy decisions. In the past 10 years, Texas has built some 77
new prisons -- with four more on the way -- and only one new four-year college.

We waste upward of $1 billion every year to inflict injustice while other
states use radically different laws saving their citizens those billions and
avoiding some of the injustices, as well.

Arizona has decriminalized small-scale possession of all drugs, and Oregon
has decriminalized marijuana for 26 years. Our nation imprisoned at a rate
of only one per 1,000 for more than a century prior to 1980, and Minnesota
continues to imprison at that same rate, while the Texas rate has exploded
to over seven per 1,000.

While Texas fights to become the No. 1 incarcerator, we rank 48th nationally
in mental-health services, and our drug-treatment services have been
slashed. Mental-health problems are at the root of a great deal of drug
abuse, but we prefer punishment -- after innocent citizens have been made
victims -- to prevention.

"The land of the free" has become the world's No. 1 prison state. There is
no evidence that individual states bucking the trend have any more crime or
drug problems than Texas as a result of their decision to invest in the
education of their children instead of prison bars.

Jerry Epstein, president Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Houston