IT'S TIME TO CALL A TRUCE

Roger Chesley's column highlights a problem that is by no means
limited to Virginia.

Blacks and whites use drugs at roughly the same rates. Although only
15 percent of the nation's drug users are black, blacks account for 37
percent of those arrested for drug violations, 42 percent of those in
federal prisons for drug violations and 60 percent of those in state
prisons for drug felonies.

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 antisocial 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.

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

Robert Sharpe

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.