To all my "drug war" brothers and sisters:

In 1994 I was arrested for conspiracy to distribute marijuana on the words of an informant named Jurgen Hans Thode. I was sentenced to 24-and-a-half years. My family at the time of arrest, my wife, Dawn, our son, Michael, age five, and daughter Taylor, age 3, have stuck by me for the last four years and have been troopers of unbelievable strength. I could never have asked for a better woman to have been placed in my life.

Yet, as is inevitable, the Walt family has become another drug war casualty. My wife Dawn can no longer bare the pain and separation this sentence has inflicted. I do not blame her, nor do I feel anger. How could I be angry with my best friend and lover, who for so long struggled to carry the torch. I am in complete despair and totally saddened by the events that have transpired, yet I pray for her happiness above and beyond my own situation.

So many of you have, or are going through the same, and I feel your pain, your heartbreak, your silent cries as well within my soul. I am so very sorry.

Not only has this "war" ruined, and continues to ruin, the lives of so many beautiful human beings; but now I also am experiencing the loss firsthand. The walk has just begun for me and I pray for strength every minute - that I may endure the journey. I know that many of you, both men and women, have already walked this path and I ask for your prayers­­for all the Walt family, the children most of all.

I pray from the bottom of my beaten and tattered heart, that this inane political nightmare comes to an end before one more child sheds one more tear over the loss of a parent, brother or sister. For each and every one, I send my prayers.

Your Caged Brother,

Scott Walt, Prisoner of the Drug War