States are finally backing away from the draconian sentencing policies that swept the country at the end of the last century, driving up prison costs and sending too many people to jail for too long, often for nonviolent offenses. Many are now trying to turn around the prison juggernaut by steering drug addicts into treatment instead of jail and retooling parole systems that once sent people back to prison for technical violations.

But the most effective way to keep people out of prison once they leave is to give them jobs skills that make them marketable employees. That, in turn, means restarting prison education programs that were shuttered beginning in the 1990s, when federal and state legislators cut funding to show how tough they were on crime.

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To the Editor:

Re "When Addiction Has a White Face" (Op-Ed, Feb. 9):

Ekow N. Yankah writes that we should "learn from our meanest moments" in responding to drug addiction as we move forward. But it's not too late to repair some of the damage caused by mistakes of the past.

Nearly 6,000 individuals are still serving time in federal prison under mandatory crack penalties, adopted by Congress at the height of the war on drugs, that punished people convicted of crack offenses much more severely than those convicted of powder cocaine. Because of racial disparities in law enforcement, more than 80 percent of these prisoners are African-American.

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I am writing in response to The News article, "23 dead here from opiates over 11 days." Does it not strike anyone else as outrageous, the fact that a very sick couple from halfway across the state knew where to come, Buffalo, and who to contact, a pusher, to get their poison? And apparently the local drug enforcement agents don't know?

Millions are spent in these agencies. For God's sake, get these murderers off our streets. One less pusher could mean 10-plus fewer overdoses. Narcan is not the answer.

Virginia Hughes

Dunkirk

[end]

WHEN crack hit America in the mid-1980s, for African-Americans, to borrow from Ta-Nehisi Coates, civilization fell. Crack embodied instant and fatal addiction; we saw endless images of thin, ravaged bodies, always black, as though from a famined land. And always those desperate, cracked lips. Our hearts broke learning the words "crack baby."

But mostly, crack meant shocking violence, terrifying gangs and hollowed-out inner cities. For those living in crack-plagued areas, the devastation was all too real. Children learned which ways home were safe and which gang to join to avoid beatings, or worse.

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To the Editor:

Shame is generally a result of the opinion of other people rather than the failure to "live up to one's own standards."

In my work as chairman of a physician health program, we have found that the fear of losing a relationship, professional position and so on is the most powerful motivator to influence one's choice to enter and remain in treatment.

Relapse in addiction is common, as high as 60 percent after long-term treatment and much higher after shorter treatment.

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To the Editor:

Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld argue that we should shame people to fight addiction. Unfortunately, while they cite data on shame in non-addicted populations, they ignore far more relevant research, which shows uniformly negative results.

In 2007, William R. Miller and William L. White reviewed research on "confrontation" in addiction treatment, a strategy that aims to shame and humiliate, using verbal attacks and even extreme tactics like making people wear diapers or dress as "bums" or prostitutes.

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To the Editor:

Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld criticize American culture for promulgating the idea that shame is "a damaging, useless emotion." They criticize efforts to "eradicate" shame (by likening drug addiction to cancer) for those with addictions, worrying that such people will see their "habits as unalterable."

Shame, as a universal social emotion, serves an evolutionarily adaptive function. It is also extremely painful and often dealt with by hiding. Contrary to the writers' assertions, our culture tends to stigmatize people with addictions - to wit, Drs. Satel and Lilienfeld use the pejorative label "addicts." Such people avoid treatment because of shame and destroy themselves in the process.

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To the Editor:

Re "Can Shame Be Useful?," by Sally L. Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld (Sunday Review, Jan. 24):

Drs. Satel and Lilienfeld disparage what they describe as "a well-intentioned campaign to eradicate feelings of shame in addicted people." They credit "a spasm of self-reproach" with enabling "many" addicts to quit, ignoring the fact that addiction has for decades been recognized as a chronic, notoriously recidivist, treatable but as yet incurable medical condition, and not, in the writers' words, a "destructive habit."

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Michael J. Kennedy, who as a criminal lawyer championed lost causes and deeply unpopular defendants - including John Gotti Sr., Huey P. Newton and Timothy Leary - and finally won freedom for Jean S. Harris, the convicted killer of Dr. Herman Tarnower, the Scarsdale Diet doctor, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 78.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, which developed while he was being treated for cancer, his wife, Eleanora, said.

A steadfast defender of the underdog and the First Amendment, Mr. Kennedy represented radicals including Rennie Davis, Bernardine Dohrn and Mr. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. His clients also included the Native American protesters at Wounded Knee, S.D., the family of the rogue real estate heir Robert A. Durst; Mr. Leary, the LSD guru; and Mr. Gotti, the mob boss.

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To the Editor:

Re "Drug Deaths Reach White America" (editorial, Jan. 25):

While heroin overdose deaths afflict white neighborhoods as never before, in New York City the worst damage is found in communities that have suffered the longest.

The highest rate of heroin overdose death is Hunts Point/Mott Haven in the Bronx, where the problem is not new. In contrast, a Staten Island community, once untouched by heroin, is second highest. This epidemic is multifaceted, and so must be the response.

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To the Editor:

Your article says the United States has not seen death rates among young white adults so high "since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago."

Not only is the AIDS epidemic not over - 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected every year - but the rise in drug abuse is spawning a new generation of H.I.V. infections, most recently in Indiana and Kentucky.

We cannot ignore the spike in deaths from overdoses. But neither can we be blind to the direct correlation between drug abuse and H.I.V.-AIDS.

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To the Editor:

The dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths is not new to drug treatment. For several years treatment providers have been racing to save the lives of young Americans addicted to opioids as what started as a surge in prescription drug abuse morphed into a full-blown opioid epidemic.

It is also not news that intensive residential and outpatient treatment services are in short supply, and what resources are available in many parts of the country are often prohibitively expensive for the vulnerable populations who need them the most.

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To the Editor:

Your compelling article "Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Whites" (front page, Jan. 17) ends with this quote: "There are people whose lives are so hard they break." But we know that lives don't break overnight. Most people with substance use disorders started using alcohol or other drugs before the age of 18, when the brain is still developing and teenagers are vulnerable.

Sadly, we need to consider more "upstream" approaches to address the opiate epidemic. We should focus more effort on those who begin to use in their early teens and engage young people in honest conversations about why they are using alcohol and drugs. Then we can help them deal with issues like stress, anxiety or trauma that contribute to their use.

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To the Editor:

Re "Mexico's New Blood Politics" (Sunday Review, Jan. 17):

Ioan Grillo's conclusion that the United States (and American taxpayers) "should use its drug-war aid to push harder" for anti-corruption and judicial reforms is off base.

As a political analyst living and working in Mexico for the last three decades, I have watched with horror how the United States-Mexico drug war strategy has led to the explosion of violence and criminal activity here. The deep-rooted complicity between government officials and security forces on the one hand and cartels on the other means that the training, equipment and firepower given in aid and sold to the Mexican government fuel violence on both sides.

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EARLIER this month, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida opened up on a subject he had once chided reporters for asking about: his daughter, Noelle, who, he said, "was addicted to drugs."

In a video released by the campaign, Mr. Bush speaks plainly about his daughter's struggle, her time in jail and drug court, and her recovery. "I can look in people's eyes and I know that they've gone through the same thing that Columba and I have," he said, referring to his wife.

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Mexico City - ON the morning of Jan. 2, a team of hired killers set off for the home of 33-year-old Gisela Mota, who only hours before had been sworn in as the first female mayor of Temixco, a sleepy spa town an hour from Mexico City. Ms. Mota was still in her pajamas as the men approached her parents' breezeblock house.

She was in the bedroom, but most of her family was in the front room, cooing over a newborn baby. As the family prepared a milk bottle, the assassins smashed the door open. Amid the commotion, Ms. Mota came out of her bedroom and said firmly, "I am Gisela." In front of her terrified family, the men beat Ms. Mota and shot her several times, killing her.

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Defendant's Lawyer Argues Punishment Was Excessive Given Efforts to Legalize Pot

A Canadian man has been handed a mandatory life sentence for his role in a multi-million-dollar drug-trafficking operation that smuggled thousands of kilograms of marijuana into the United States, authorities said.

Michael (Mickey) Woods, 45, of Cornwall, Ont., who had been convicted following a six-day jury trial last summer, was sentenced in federal court in Syracuse, N.Y. despite objections that the punishment was cruel and unusual. The court also ordered a $45-million (U.S.) judgment against him. Woods and co-accused Gaetan (Gates) Dinelle, 42, also of Cornwall, were found guilty of membership in three separate but related conspiracies, each involving a tonne or more of marijuana destined for the United States.

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ALBANY - New York joined the ranks of nearly half the states on Thursday in allowing the use of medical marijuana with the opening of eight dispensaries statewide, serving a variety of tinctures, concentrates, vapors and other forms of the drug.

How many patients actually received medicine from those dispensaries, however, was uncertain; several locations around the state had customers who entered, but it was not clear if any actually bought the drug, or were qualified to do so under the state's strict guidelines. On Thursday, officials at the state's Department of Health said that only 51 patients had been certified for the program thus far, though that process only began on Dec. 23 and requires the approval of a physician who has registered with the state.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - New York joined the ranks of nearly half the states Thursday in allowing the use of medical marijuana with the opening of eight dispensaries statewide, serving a variety of syrups, concentrates, and other nonsmokable forms of the drug.

How many patients will initially visit those dispensaries is uncertain.

Officials at the state's Department of Health said that by Wednesday only 51 patients had qualified for the drug. Such certification, however, began only Dec. 23 and requires the approval of a physician who has registered with the state.

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ALBANY (AP) - New Yorkers with cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's disease, or other qualifying conditions will be able to obtain medical marijuana as early as Thursday, 18 months after lawmakers passed what is considered one of the strictest medical cannabis programs in the nation.

The program is off to a slow start: Only 150 physicians have completed the required registration with the state, and only eight of 20 dispensaries expect to open on Thursday. The remaining 12 are expected to open by month's end.

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