A CASE FOR WINDING DOWN THE DRUG WAR

Kudos for making the case for drug treatment over incarceration for
nonviolent drug offenders in your Jan. 22 editorial headlined "The
treatment difference."

The punitive approach to minor drug offenses is simply not sustainable.

The drug war's burden on taxpayers gets higher every year as ever more drug
users and dealers are incarcerated for consensual vices.

Drug use continues unabated as replacement dealers immediately step in to
reap inflated illicit market profits.

The option of treatment instead of incarceration for nonviolent drug
offenders will do more than just save taxpayers money.

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.

Prisons transmit violent habits and values rather than reduce them.
Incarcerating recreational drug users alongside violent criminals is the
equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-financed education in criminal
behavior. Nonviolent drug offenders are eventually released, with dismal
job opportunities due to criminal records.

Currently, there is a glaring double standard in place.

Alcohol and tobacco are by far the deadliest recreational drugs, yet the
government does not actively attempt to destroy the lives of drinkers and
smokers.

Imagine if every alcoholic were thrown in jail and given a permanent
criminal record.

How many lives would be destroyed? How many families would be torn apart?

Robert Sharpe, Washington, D.C.

Editor's note: The writer is program officer with the Lindesmith
Center-Drug Policy Foundation, an organization that describes itself as
dedicated to broadening and informing public debate on drugs.