Stronger drug, alcohol programs needed

To the editor:

The recent tragic deaths of a police officer and three teen-agers again shows the failure of our system to deal with drug- and alcohol-related problems. Here's three bright young kids that end up doing stupid things that end their lives, as well as the life of the officer. It was quickly over. However, this is an ongoing problem where people are having mind-altering situations going on that affect their lives and other people's lives in the worst possible way.

We all know in America we have rights. However, these young people were in the system for breaking the rules, breaking the law and the system had control of them, but the system didn't work, the system is broken.

I have contacted people in the system about people who were not doing well in an alcohol and drug-related recovery system. I was told these people had to sink to new lows to be dealt with in any further way.

I expressed to them that they needed a stronger program to deal with the individuals in a stronger format, one that would keep them off of drugs and alcohol. A format where they would not be able to falsify their tests by manipulating the time they have them.

There needs to be a way to keep them from manipulating the system and becoming jailhouse lawyers. They can drink most of the weekend, dry out for a couple days, be tested, pass, and then start drinking again, yet they are on a program.

When it becomes a problem in an individual's life and they are in front of a judge in court for drug- and alcohol-related problems, let it be known, let it be policy that they come under the strictest anti-drug and alcohol system in the world.

When they walk into a courtroom and are judged guilty, their rights are limited at that point. The judges can do what they want to them. We have anti-drug-and-alcohol chemicals that can be injected into people that do the service of rejecting drugs and alcohol.

These offenders do not need to just dry out for two weeks, three weeks, or four weeks, but dry out for years. Then they can start to get their lives back together and the sooner that you get the drugs and alcohol out of their bodies, the better chance they have of not hurting their own minds and bodies and others' for the rest of their lives.

Paul Myer