STOP WAR ON ADDICTS, VOTE FOR ISSUE 1

Issue 1, to mandate treatment instead of incarceration for nonviolent drug
offenders, should be approved.

The fact that the United States of America has more people in prison than
any other nation in the world bothers me greatly. While we continue to send
thousands of nonviolent addicts to prison as punishment for using drugs,
paying $23,000 per inmate - according to Reginald A. Wilkinson, director of
the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction - "inmate drug testing
levels have not been acceptable."

In other words we waste taxpayers' dollars to send people to prison for
using drugs while the same drugs are as available in prison as they are on
the streets. They actually offer inmates time off for good behavior for
staying clean while they are in prison.

As a recovering crack cocaine addict of some 14 years, I know that
treatment works. As a former director (10 years) of treatment programs, I
know that treatment works. As a chaplain in area jails and prisons, I see
the same men and women coming and going, back and forth, because they do
not receive treatment. The recidivism rate for drug users is 65 percent.
"Steel door therapy" does not work.

America's war on drugs is not working. In reality, it is just a war on
addicts. The only people, outside of politicians (who are afraid of being
perceived as "soft on crime"), who benefit from the present insane drug
policy in Ohio are the vendors supplying the prison/industrial complex, who
make billions of dollars of profit. Issue 1 will save Ohio taxpayers money
and it will save lives. Treatment saved mine.

MANSOUR S. BEY, Tremain Drive