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US: Column: Dumping DARE A Good Start O <br />1 <br />ht0rw.mapmc.org/drugnewsh•98.n L143.aU&html/all <br />arrest and incarceration. Still, among industrialized countries in the <br />world, the U.S. lags far behind in spending on treatment programs - and <br />way, way ahead in incarceration. <br />Instead of paying the annual cost of $2,000 to $5,000 per addict for <br />outpatient treatment or up to $15,000 for long-term inpatient programs, <br />we spend $25,000 to $50,000 a year to jail addicts, leaving their complex <br />medical and psychological problems untreated. <br />More than 400,000 Americans are in prison on drug charges. Among <br />federal prisoners, 65 percent are doing time for nonviolent, drug-related <br />convictions. One in nine American schoolchildren has at least one parent <br />in prison. <br />The patently racist drug laws deliver their harshest penalties to inner-city <br />crack addicts and dealers, while giving much lighter sentences to the <br />well-heeled snorting cocaine in Beverly Hills and Cherry Hills Village and <br />Washington, D.C. It takes possession of 500 grams of powdered cocaine to <br />incur the same mandatory five-year sentence as possession of 5 grams of <br />crack cocaine. <br />Thanks largely to the U.S. war on drugs, the economies of Colombia, <br />Bolivia and Peru are so dependent on black-market cocaine trafficking <br />that no amount of American foreign aid can compensate for the revenues <br />that would be lost if production were curtailed. <br />The failures in the war on drugs have been so spectacular and so <br />thoroughly documented that it's clear the only reason it continues is that <br />Americans have been brainwashed by self-interested political leaders and <br />the tidal wave of propaganda, of which DARE represents but a trickle. <br />If we really cared about protecting our children from the scourge of drug <br />addiction, we'd demand that the government abandon the war on drugs <br />and employ some of the cheaper and vastly more effective programs under <br />way in other countries. <br />We'd demand that leaders stop wasting our money on ill-conceived prison <br />programs and spend it giving our kids preparation for the kind of future <br />that makes wasting their lives on drugs unthinkable. <br />Checked -by: Richard Lake <br />2 of 3 1 orooiun 9.19 nre <br />