Pubdate: Mon, 20 Mar 2017
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2017 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Michael G. Brautigam

A FAMILY TRAGEDY, AND AN UNWINNABLE DRUG WAR

Re "As Heroin Infests Farms, a Grieving Parent Fears for the Future"
(front page, March 13):

The view of Roger D. Winemiller, who lost two children to drug
overdoses, that the solution to the drug epidemic is tougher
penalties, while understandable, is misguided.

As a former prosecutor, including time as a narcotics prosecutor, I
can only conclude that the war on drugs is unwinnable. What good did
tough narcotics laws do the Winemiller children? Would the results be
better if sometimes draconian laws were made even more draconian?

Certainly, the senior Mr. Winemiller might feel better at first if the
people who sold his dead children heroin were locked up with the key
thrown away, but would anything really change?

How about treating drug use and abuse as a medical problem, not a
criminal one? Society needs to realize that people like me who argue
that all drugs should be legalized do not suggest that drugs are good,
but only recognize the reality that the decades-long war on drugs - in
which I played a small part during the age of crack which I now regret
- - can never be won.

As President Trump said on the campaign trail in a different context:
What do you have to lose?

MICHAEL G. BRAUTIGAM

CINCINNATI
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MAP posted-by: Matt