Changing U.S. Drug Policy

I want to commend you on your editorial on drug policy (Jan. 4). I am a criminal defense attorney who represents indigent defendants under a contract with Los Angeles County. I would estimate that approximately 70% of the cases I handle are somehow drug related. My clients are charged with either buying, selling, using, or possessing drugs (usually cocaine) or they are committing other crimes to sustain a drug habit.

In most instances, defendants are sentenced to jail or prison for selling $20 worth of rock cocaine.

In a majority of these cases my clients have requested treatment for their drug problems. In some instances these requests are just a way of avoiding jail--but in a majority there is a desire to get some help. Receiving any type of drug treatment--especially in a decent live-in program--is almost impossible in Los Angeles County, especially if one is indigent. Although you state there are 2,000 people on waiting lists for treatment programs, I believe there are probably a hundred times that many who desire treatment but there are not even enough programs available to get on waiting lists. Treatment is just not available. It is appalling that L.A. County had to return over $10 million to the federal government because it was not used for drug treatment.

As your editorial implies, it would be more cost-effective, as well as beneficial to society, to start spending more of the money on the war on drugs in getting treatment for those who really desire it than attempting to ignore this complex problem by putting more and more of our population--usually blacks and Mexican-Americans--behind bars.

MORRIS KUSHNER

Santa Monica