Drugs and Prison

Re “Medical Neglect, Abuse Lie in Wait for State’s Women Prisoners,” Oct. 27: The drug war is now incarcerating bit players and users in record numbers for long mandatory minimum sentences voted by our ever-tough politicians. We say it is to “help” them, but Amnesty International has us on the list of nations that torture political prisoners with such conditions.

Drug prohibition sends these nonviolent “offenders” to death and degradation in the name of “sending a message” to the children. What message are we really sending about force and the power of the majority to legislate morality and to viciously wipe out a dissenting and helpless minority?

JIM ROSENFIELD

Culver City

*

Anyone who calls for a stop to the war on drugs or seeks to decriminalize drug use has certainly never had a family member who was an addict. They couldn’t have seen a family disintegrate, children neglected, financial hardship, not to mention the user’s own erratic behavior and self-destruction (emotional, physical, moral, vocational, social, etc.). All because an individual committed so-called “victimless” crimes.

Just because members of LAPD’s CRASH unit went awry, let’s not vilify anti-drug efforts. Both drug use and dealing have made L.A. a depressing, unpredictable and dangerous place--in the home and the streets.

SUSAN MIJARES

Downey