Pubdate: Sun, 24 May 2015
Source: Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Daily Camera.
Contact:  http://www.dailycamera.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/103
Author: Kika Dorsey

TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH ON DRUGS

The recent article, "Increase in Heroin use, Deaths" (Daily Camera,
May 19) is about the increased deaths from heroin overdoses due to bad
heroin being sold on the streets. This comes in the wake of the arrest
of a suspected drug dealer. Statistics show that the more we
criminalize drugs, the more people die of overdoses from bad street
drugs and the more homicides occur. Obviously, the drug war is not
working. We should have learned that already with prohibition.

The United States has 2.2 million people in prisons and jails, a 500
percent increase in the last three decades. There are more people
incarcerated in the United States per capita than in any country in
the world. Forty-eight percent of those incarcerated are in for drug
offenses.

Statistics have proven that legalizing drugs, for example heroin, and
putting them into the hands of doctors, lessens crime, death from
overdoses, and actual addiction. Examples of places where this has
been successful are Portugal, Switzerland, and the city of Vancouver.
By helping addicts get jobs and rehabilitating them into society,
instead of ostracizing and criminalizing and making it hard for them
to work, we could help solve this problem. By putting them into the
hands of prisons and private probation companies that take their money
and make money off of crime, we are increasing the problem. By putting
drugs into the hands of criminals and addicts who desperately cut
their drugs to sell them to support their habit, we are increasing the
problem.

Let's learn from the successful policies of other countries. In the
long run and in addition, rehabilitating addicts and providing a
system of compassion will also save us money. The criminal justice
system would save $12.9 billion if only 40 percent of people with drug
offenses were rehabilitated instead of incarcerated.

Kika Dorsey

Boulder
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