SIMILIARITIES BETWEEN TODAY, PROHIBITION

In response to Your views, "We must offer help" (5-9-05), I thank the
writer for expressing the real issues about our drug laws.

We are creating a society of unemployable young men and women. These people
have an illness and should be treated as such, instead of as hardened
criminals. There are just as many people hooked on legal prescriptions as
there are on illegal drugs. Prescription drugs can be bought on the black
market and are just as addicting as meth, crack, ice, etc.

If prohibition was still in effect, look at all the people who would be in
prison for alcohol. Did this country not learn anything from prohibition?
It doesn't work.

The War on Drugs is prohibition all over again. The money involved, keeping
drugs illegal, creates corruption. The same thing that happened during
prohibition is happening again. Bacteria growing in the stills could kill
you with one drink, and they could blow up - the same thing we are going
through with meth labs.

This country needs to look into Canada's experiment, giving drug addicts
their drugs under the administration of a doctor and clean needles for
needle users. Actually, places in Europe have already been using this
treatment. They are finding this is helping get heroine addicts off
heroine, plus cutting down on the spread of AIDS. But our representative
for the United States stated, "We believe in recovery in this country." It
looks like to me, we are creating a world of mess. Our recovery is putting
them into prison.

I think it's time to make changes in this country. To all you people with
closed eyes to this, please open them.

Child molesters have an addiction to little children. These people are
never cured, either, but yet we would rather put someone in prison for
drugs. We overcrowd our prisons with people who have drug addictions and
let child molesters walk our streets. How many more children are going to
be molested and murdered before this crime is taken more seriously?

Janis Reasnor, Colbert, Okla.