Effect of Drug War on Blacks
Your article on the effects of the drug war on minorities was both excellent and long overdue (“Blacks Feel Brunt of Drug War,” front page, April 22).
At the current rates of incarceration, by the year 2000, at least one-half of all of the young black men in America will be in prison or on parole. About 1.5 million black male teen-agers will be dead or in prison before their 30th birthday. Young black men who go to prison are as good as dead. They do not come back as productive members of society. For every black teen-ager who goes to college, three will go to prison.
On the other hand, the General Accounting Office just released its own study which showed that medical treatment reduces drug addiction, health problems, and drug-related crime by at least 85%. The vast majority of drug users who received treatment became productive members of society in less time than the average prison sentence for drugs, at about one-tenth the cost of prison.
The federal goals, as outlined by drug czar William Bennett, will destroy at least half of an entire black generation--even if the drugs do not. This is not a sensible drug policy. This is wholesale slaughter.
CLIFFORD A. SCHAFFER
Canyon Country
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