To the editor:

After his election in 2004, Dist. Atty. Charles Branson vowed to send drug dealers to U.S. District Court. So, Theogen Carter, the 42-year-old Leavenworth man who was stopped with 82 grams of crack will spend the rest of his life in a federal prison instead of 20 years in a Kansas facility. Likewise, the Trotter brothers received 25 and 22 years for dealing crack cocaine and possessing a gun they didn’t use on anyone. These Lawrence boys would have been sentenced to 10 to 15 years by the state.

Will the goal of a drug-free Lawrence be attained by prosecuting drug dealers in federal court? There is no evidence that this tactic is decreasing the use or availability of illegal drugs. What is evident, is the taxpayers are paying right along with the inmates. The tab for incarcerating Theogen, Maurice and Mardell will be more than $3 million.

My contention is not that criminal acts should go without consequences. It is that we need to come to grips with the breadth and depth of our substance abuse problems as a community. Thoughtful and creative combinations of incarceration, public service and drug treatment are consequences that can have a lasting positive effect at a far lower cost in both human and fiscal terms.

I urge Branson to stop sending drug cases to his colleagues in federal court. This approach denies local judges and juries the ability to supervise the consequences of our native sons’ and daughters’ transgressions, and quite frankly, we can’t afford it.

Laura A. Green,

Lawrence