BETTER TO TAKE PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Keeping the ingredients of methamphetamine behind the pharmacy counter, as
Alabama is now doing, is certainly a better solution than the previous
nonsolution of building more and bigger prisons.

Oklahoma learned the hard way the so-called "tough on drugs" policies don't
work, and they are very expensive. Largely because of its "tough on drugs"
policies, Oklahoma became the fourth-highest state for incarcerations.

Largely because of our war on drugs policies, the United States has been
transformed into the most incarcerated nation in the history of human
civilization. Even though we in the United States have fewer than 5 percent
of the world's population, we have more than 25 percent of the world's
prisoners.

What message does this send to the rest of the world?

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.