I am placing this here because injustice come in all shapes or colors. When we think of an injustice, we usually think of an innocent person in prison, but an injustice can also be when any person who should not be in prison, finds himself locked up without any hope for rehabilitation.

I am speaking of the prison sentences for low level drug offenders, the possessors and the users.

In my work, I realize that many of the wives, mothers, and girlfriends have a husband, son/daughter, or boyfriend serving time in prison for low level drug offenses, a substance abuse problem, or alcohol related charges.

Many wonder why this happens and why more is not being done to correct the problem of so many low level offenders serving time in the our nation's penitentiaries.

The American criminal justice system will always be burdened down with these arrests and prison terms of low level offenders UNTIL---until--- we realize---REALIZE---- that drug abuse, substance abuse, and alcohol abuse is a MEDICAL problem and NOT a criminal justice system problem.

Not only have we thrown billions of dollars down the bottomless pit of state or federal corrections with nothing to show for it, the amount of misery for the family when a low level offender is imprisoned, with the resultant felony conviction----which drastically changes the offender's lives----is immeasurable and cannot be overstated.

The people who work on the front lines and the families of those with these types of offenders in prison can attest to the emotional drain and heartache it is to have a loved one in prison.

Unless the offender was dealing large amounts of drugs for profit, he or she needs help, not prison. In all the prisons I was ever housed or all the prisons I knew, the rehabilitation of the offender was never a priority.

Oh, they might have some rinky dink three month program taught by a case manager, but no concerted effort was made to really rehabilitate these NON-violent offenders. Why spend the limited resources to help the offenders when the same money could be used to enhance a political agenda of being "tough on crime" which continues to be a sure ticket for our politicians to be re-elected?

Politicians do not win elections because they are humanitarians or because they are "smart on crime" but because they are able to appease the uninformed masses that the hard on crime attitude is the best solution to the problem.

We should have learned long ago that, in this foolish War on Drugs, we cannot ARREST our way out of this problem. But we didn't.

I was in the drug industry, as that is the field for which I was educated. I saw the day in day out number of people who were addicted---either physically addicted or psychologically addicted (sometimes referred to as "habituated") to controlled substances---- and did not even realize it. As the drugs became easier to obtain and more difficult to manage----as in the case of the opiates----the problem spread to out youth.

We failed to educated them about drugs, but we also failed to offer them any viable medical treatment. All we had to offer was scorn and to label them as "a drug addict." That is not an effective method to approach any substance abuse problem, especially the one we have in American at the present time.

And therein is the problem. Stupid politicians and an uninformed public that does not understand----and most of the time, does not care---about the real problems that plague this nation.

As I said, for several decades we have attempted to arrest our way out of this problem with no success. To continue on this same path is nothing short of stubborn foolishness.

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