WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILURE

Emma Mieden is to be commended for an excellent column June 25.
Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were
incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities.

Racially disproportionate incarceration rates are not the only cause
for alarm. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure,
joblessness, addiction and delinquency.

Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders alongside hardened criminals
is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education
in anti-social behavior.

It's time to declare peace in the failed drug war and begin treating
all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public health problem
it is. Tobacco use has declined considerably in recent years. Public
education efforts are paying off. Apparently mandatory minimum prison
sentences, civil asset forfeiture, random drug testing and racial
profiling are not necessarily the most cost-effective means of
discouraging unhealthy choices.

Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.

ROBERT SHARPE

Arlington, Va.

The writer is a policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy
www.csdp.org based in Washington, D.C.