The sentencing of Robert Downey Jr. to three years in the penitentiary
is just one more example of our barbarous approach to the drug problem
in this country (Aug. 6). Fifty years from now they will look back on
these times and shake their heads in disbelief that we put people in
prison for addiction problems, instead of offering treatment for what
is a health not a criminal problem.

The war on drugs is a total, miserable failure, and you need look no
further back in our history than the pathetic attempt at prohibition
of alcohol in the 1920s to see what a doomed policy it truly is.
Prohibition didn't work then, and it's not working now.

DON M. HOWARD,
Oak Hills