| How many American's are in jails and prisons wasting away in the industrial prison system? Young, non-violent men, and women, doing sentences at taxpayer's expense, many of which are black, brown, uneducated, victims of a system out of control. Other young people, and old, wasting away from the corrosive effects of too much everything, and no reasons on the horizon to quit. Each of us as adults join a world of sink or swim, some of us are sinking as children. We are each our own saviors, sooner or later. No one else does it for us. I decided and still decide for me, no one else could. Drugs have shortened my life, and there is no changing that. When you are young and can't concieve of death even when you see your relatives and friends in their caskets, you feel invincible. That feeling fades with time. ~James W. Ryder |