COST OF THE WAR ON DRUGS

Re: "Prison costs are running out of control; Start with cutting drug
sentences," June 26 Perspective article.

Major kudos to Mike Krause for his outstanding column. The monetary
costs are not the only costs of our failed war on drugs. The war on
drugs has cost us the right to rightfully call the United States a
truly free country. If adult citizens cannot decide for themselves
what to put into their own bodies without the threat of getting
arrested and jailed for doing so, we are not a free country.

The words "liberty" or "justice" engraved upon our currency or
national monuments do not make this a country free.

Kirk Muse,

Mesa, Ariz.