Tough on Drugs

Prisons are filled with users who pick jail over probation and treatment. Welcome to Round 42 of the war on drugs.

Comments (0) By Margaret Downing Thursday, Dec 14 2000

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Let's recognize too that it's also not desirable to write people off when they're 18, consigning them in many cases to ruined lives, and consigning the rest of us to paying for their room and board in prison for the rest of those lives.

And finally, let us recognize that many of us are just incredibly lucky that we were never caught when we experimented, used regularly or depended upon drugs to get us through.

Deron Neblett

Judge Jan Krocker has a good program to send drug offenders to, if she can just get them to go.

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Ah, for those clearer, less convoluted days when "Just Say No" reigned in the land. Those of us who thought that was a pretty stupid motto could just chortle away. Others embraced the phrase like a protective shield. But there's no laughter and little protection in the notion of an 18-year-old crackhead mother going to prison because she thinks that's her best option. Not when no one with any surety can really say it's not.