Pubdate: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
Date: 11/30/1999
Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Author: Joy Jacques
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n1275/a10.html
Note: Differing from the printed version, the headline of the newspaper's
online version for this letters section was "Laws Grams supports more
harmful than drugs"

I began experimenting with drugs in my early teens.

I became addicted in my 20s. Through treatment, I overcame these
addictions. I want to respond to Rod Grams' Nov. 23 column.

I have not talked about my past openly before because of the intense
stigma this country attaches to drug use. I decided I would no longer
remain silent when, in the town where I live, a man who took the life
of a small child and the woman who covered it up received ludicrously
short prison sentences. Real decisions, not just sound bites, are
needed: Given limited resources in our criminal justice system, who is
more appropriately imprisoned, drug users who rarely harm anyone other
than themselves, or violent criminals?

As Harvard psychiatrist James Gilligan points out, the only drug truly
linked to violence is alcohol.

Oddly, it is the drugs that decrease aggression (marijuana and heroin)
and those that have no aggregate effect on violence either way
(psychedelics, cocaine and other stimulants) that have been made illegal.

Incarceration is only effective as a short-term consequence. Longer
penalties do much more harm than good, as the person retreats further
and further from society.

To be against the Drug War is not tantamount to being pro-drug. It is
a reasonable response to a war that is causing tremendous harm to our
society -- a war against our own citizens -- a war we cannot win.
Treatment, not long-term incarceration, is the humane way to deal with
America's drug users.

Joy Jacques
Cannon Falls