Cites hypocrisy ofdistrict attorney

I hope everyone remembers the hypocrisy of Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan when he runs again in 2018.

When it is convenient, addiction is a disease, that is until he wants to criminalize it. Somehow we are supposed to believe him when he says he believes in treatment over jail … except when he doesn’t, as in the decision to prosecute Jesse Carrillo (“DA lays out case for prosecuting Carrillo,” June 15).

Last month, a MassINC poll found that two-thirds of Massachusetts residents believe that drug use should be treated as a health problem rather than as a crime. Sullivan is out of step.

This is a very bad precedent for Franklin and Hampshire counties, bad for the state and bad for the country because in the criminal legal system, every really bad idea is embraced by another DA.

Lois Ahrens

Northampton

The writer is founding director of The Real Cost of Prisons Project, a national organization based in Northampton.

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