MANY STATES PURSUING ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Regarding your April 4 editorial, many states facing
budget shortfalls are pursuing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent
drug offenders. At an average cost of $25,000 per inmate, prison cells are
hardly ideally health interventions. Unfortunately, an arrest is oftentimes
a necessary prerequisite for cost-effective drug treatment. Fear of
criminal sanctions compels many problem drug users to suffer in silence.
Toning down the zero-tolerance rhetoric would help facilitate rehabilitation.

The option of increased drug treatment alternatives would do more than save
taxpayers money. Public safety is at stake. Prisons transmit violent habits
rather than reduce them. Minor drug offenders are eventually released, with
dismal job prospects due to criminal records. Turning recreational drug
users into career criminals is a senseless waste of tax dollars.

At present, there is a glaring double standard in place. Alcohol and
tobacco are by far the deadliest recreational drugs, yet the government
does not go out of its way 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 torn
apart? How many tax dollars would be wasted turning potentially productive
members of society into hardened criminals?

Robert Sharpe, program officer, Drug Policy Alliance