Pubdate: Wed, 07 Jan 2004
Source: News & Advance, The (VA)
Copyright: 2004 Media General
Contact:  http://www.newsadvance.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2087
Author: Crystel Holbein
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n011/a02.html?1138
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n011/a01.html?1138

SYSTEM IN TROUBLE

I would like to congratulate your reporter Bill Freehling on his stories 
about the men in prison who are drug addicts.

Finally a reporter and a newspaper has the guts to tell it like it is. This 
problem had been going on for many years, but no one has paid any attention 
to the problem. Now maybe someone will start to think about the whole picture.

What about the system and what happens to the kids and family, the welfare 
and poverty?

What about how no one really cares about these people in jail because it 
was drugs?

What about the cost to society of not getting them help for the illness of 
the drug while in prison? And what about getting them back to help their 
families.

Please, from a mother, this is a plea to society for a correction in the 
system. Punishment, yes, but persecution, no. Don't just call these fathers 
(and some mothers) just another statistic.

Would you take your child to a doctor who would suggest that you kill the 
child because he had cancer?

CRYSTEL HOLBEIN, Halifax
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