Pubdate: Thu, 16 Aug 2001
Source: Charleston Gazette (WV)
Copyright: 2001 Charleston Gazette
Contact:  http://www.wvgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/77
Author: Terry Brenan

WAR ON DRUGS FUELS AIDS, TB

Editor:

When we graduated from high school in 1970 and went to college, we were 
going to change the world. After leaving college, we found that it was 
going to be a tough job. We believed in the American dream.

Now we have 500,000 more people in jail than China does. We spend more on 
prisons than we do on schools.

I've been in a courtroom and seen a man sentenced to six months in jail for 
his second offense of carrying an open container. This isn't justice; it's 
retribution.

Gov. Johnson, the Republican governor of New Mexico, notes that AIDS, 
tuberculosis and hepatitis C infections would drop if we took a different 
approach to drug use.

Prisoners are being released back into society with TB. In 1990, the last 
time the [federal] Centers for Disease Control did a study, prisoners had 
four times the rate of tuberculosis than the general population.

"Tough on crime" is money down the drain. Have we all gotten our rebate checks?

Terry Brenan, Charleston
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