The US Attorney General is talking about finding ways to reduce the number of our sons and daughters in jail for possession of dangerous drugs. I can only applaud his actions even though his reasons seem to revolve around saving money and not the lives of addicts.
The consensus of the scientific and medical folks is that addiction is a disease. Addicts have the same chance of recovery, if untreated, as they would have of recovering from cancer untreated. The evidence is that dangerous drugs act on addicts in ways that change their bodies and minds for the worse.
There's a feeling in the larger community that if addicts just changed their behavior they will be cured. Doesn't work for cancer or the common cold and the evidence is that it doesn't work for addicts either. Regardless, we still feel that addiction is the fault of it's victim and that it's an offense against the community. As a result, we incarcerate instead of treating these victims of disease.
A cynic might point out that the rich, white addict does usually get diverted into treatment and that the poor and black and brown almost never do. That's a larger problem and probably not amenable to medical treatment. We can certainly do something about helping addicts of all stripes; however.
If we overcome the mistaken idea that the disease of addiction is the fault of it's victim we can surely treat it at a cost less than the cost of incarceration. As a sop to the Tea Party, I would suggest that we might get more bang for the buck if we expand the private sector treatment that is already in place. That combined with additional research into treatment and prevention might solve the problem without the high cost associated with prisons and the justice system.
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