DRUG TREATMENT

Kansas City judges are to be commended for introducing much needed
alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders (10/17,
Metropolitan, "KC to release some jail inmates to treatment program").

With violent crime continuing along a downward trend, the drug war is the
principal reason the U.S. now has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

A study conducted by the Rand Corp. found that every dollar invested in
substance-abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.46 in societal costs. There is
far more at stake than tax dollars. The drug war is not the promoter of
family values that some would have us believe.

Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness,
addiction and delinquency. Not only do the children lose out, but society
as a whole does, too.

Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders alongside hardened criminals is the
equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in criminal
behavior.

Turning drug users into unemployable ex-cons is a senseless waste of tax
dollars.

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.

Robert Sharpe, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, D.C.