Editor, Times-Union: This is in response to those of you incarcerated for breaking the law by choosing to become meth addicts. From the very beginning you had to have known the risks you were taking by choosing to use this drug.
No one forced it on you. Now you want the community to find the money to fund remedial programs plus an additional drug court so that you don’t have to sit in prison. Apparently each of you has served time prior to this sentence you are currently serving, yet you came out and made the same bad choice.
As a taxpayer in this community I will tell you that I really resent all that you are requesting from us. We are already paying for your incarceration, as well as cleaning up your meth labs, your court-appointed attorneys, your children that you leave behind, and the list goes on. I applaud Judge Reed for his harsh sentencing.
He serves the community well in that he is sending a strong message to you and would be users that this community will not tolerate this plague that you have helped perpetuate. Everybody makes bad choices. Everybody pays a price for their bad choices.
Sooner or later you learn to make good choices. There is no court or remedial program that will help you until you learn to make good choices. Your request for more money to create more wiggle room for you to make more bad choices is denied. If you don’t like what this community has to offer, then I suggest that when you are released you go live somewhere more to your liking.
