LEGALIZING POT CUTS JAIL CROWDING

In regard to recent articles about overcrowded jails and Florida's
drug war, these two problems have been evident for more than 40 years.
Both sides of the drug/incarceration issue are interlocked.

Rather than seek a middle-ground, people on both sides continue to
blather with the same hackneyed party lines.

There are solutions that would solve the problem, but our politicians
do not want to tread on new ground. They don't want to irritate either
side of the shrill, vocal voting minorities, while the majority of
non-voting moderates sit idly on the sidelines.

Jails are overcrowded, and I sympathize with the poor corrections
officers who have to control the masses inside. But the jails wouldn't
be overcrowded if our legislators would look at the new ideas put
forth by folks trying to help reduce the problem.

To his credit, treatment advocate Harold Koenig has tried valiantly to
convince a number of state officials to reduce sentences for first-or
second-time drug offenders. These folks comprise the majority of the
jail populace and are thrown in with the violent criminals who should
be there.

When the jail population reaches its maximum, violent offenders are
the ones who are let out of jail.

There is something very wrong here, and something must be done about
it. Florida does not have enough money to solve the problem in the
same old way it has tried for decades.

If marijuana were decriminalized or legalized, then our law
enforcement and rehabilitative agencies could concentrate on the
harder, more destructive drugs already entrenched in society.

RAY HASKELL
Titusville