Pubdate: Sat, 12 Sep 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Bill Downing
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n508/a06.html

A Renewed War on Drugs?

FOCUS ON PUNISHMENT HAS FAILED TO SOLVE DRUG CRISIS

For more than 100 years, both our state and our nation have 
prosecuted drug users in an effort to prevent drug abuse. Despite a 
century of best efforts by police and prosecutors, "America is in the 
midst of a heroin crisis," as William J. Bennett and John P. Walters 
wrote in their Sept. 9 opinion piece "Bring back the war on drugs." 
What solution do these two former drug czars offer? The same solution 
we have tried for more than 100 years - more prosecutions.

It should surprise no one that former drug czars want to reinvigorate 
the war on drugs. Waging the drug war is, after all, what drug czars 
do. It is what they have built their careers on.

Most of the rest of us realize that employing the same tactic that 
has failed to prevent the current crisis is the very definition of 
insanity. Many studies have now confirmed that treatment is far more 
effective and cost-efficient than prosecution, and a clear majority 
of Americans - 67 percent, according to a Pew Research Center poll - agree.

Bill Downing

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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom