U.S. TOUGH DRUG POLICIES INCREASING PRISON POPULATION

To The Oak Ridger:

I'm writing about your thoughtful editorial: "Inconvenience a small
price to pay to fight meth" (April 6, 2005).

Keeping the ingredients of meth behind the counter of licensed
pharmacies is certainly a much better solution than the previous
non-solution of building more and bigger prisons.

Oklahoma learned the hard way that the so-called "tough on drugs"
policies don't work and they are very expensive. Largely because of
their "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 U. S. have fewer than five
percent of the world's population, we have more than 25 percent of the
world's prisoners.

In other words, one out of every four prisoners in the world is locked
in an American jail or prison. What message does this send to the rest
of the world?

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.