CURB USE BY EDUCATION

I'm in total agreement with Kirk Muse's June 18 letter, "Regulation
reduces harm." Our "war on drugs" has done nothing but create more
crime and fill our prisons to overcapacity. We exceed every other
country in the world in prison population and the reason for that is
our war on drugs. A quarter of all sentences are for drug offenses,
mostly nonviolent. Many other sentences are drug related, as well.

Our failed adventure into alcohol prohibition should have taught us
something. Drug use and drug addiction have not declined and our
children are still able to access drugs. Drug use is a social and a
medical problem and cannot be controlled by incarceration. Smoking is
legal and has been curbed by education, so perhaps we can reduce the
number of drug users in the same manner.

Michaela Mosteller,

Cathlamet