SALE, USE OF DRUGS SPAWN OTHER CRIMES

Our prisons are full of black men not because they do drugs or sell drugs,
but because they rob convenience stores, burglarize homes and businesses,
and rob and kill people to support their drug dependency or business. It's
not so much that they're "doing drugs" as what they are doing to do drugs.
I would wager that for most drug charges there are attached other criminal
charges.

The problem, as Cynthia Tucker points out, is not bigotry --- it is one of
black men committing disproportionate numbers of criminal acts and getting
caught and prosecuted. As we celebrate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
nonviolent legacy this month, it might be appropriate for the black
community at large to look inward for solutions.

ROY M. COLLINS

Cumming