I think it would be easier to deal with just treatment for addicts, instead of violence, crime and treatment..

Question

What do you think?

Answer 1

That's right, getting high shouldn't be a crime and if you are addicted and you want help, you should be treated for a medical problem, not a legal one. Think of all the money we'd save NOT incarcerating people with health problems.
What is crazy is that 2 of the worst drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are legal.
I'm sure more violent crime is committed on alcohol than pot. I've done both. In fact, when they prohibited alcohol, which brought on the meteoric rise in organized crime, only one crime was decreased, that is, spousal abuse.
But it wasn't worth the trade-off. I'm just pointing to which drug causes the most (violent) problems when ingested. They should ALL be legal.

Answer 2

Go to a police station for a week and see how many "harmless addicts" are brought in for assault, robbery, murder ..etc ..etc..
Go to the crime scenes and see what these people do and you will change your mind. Most in an attempt to get drugs or the money to buy them. Watch someone on PCP while they are going crazy on anything or anyone in their path. See children living in a Tweakers house (meth) while they are cooking and toxic fumes are getting into their system every day. Or the paranoia takes over and they beat their spouse or child or neighbor , because they think they are going to turn them in.

There are free treatment centers all over and the same people come back again and again. I will admit that Marijuana is not a problem with violence as is Alcohol, except you cannot drive any better with it than you can when drunk.

Answer 3

I think it would depend on the person, and the type of drug. I don't believe that the war on drugs is winning but I believe attitude is a good place to start. I read a statistic regarding how many people have quit smoking and rate a declines in deaths. It is very much a success story.
Keeping cigs. out of the hands of minors and education has helps with the rapid declines. If we could come up with a way to make drugs loose there appeal it would take a huge dent out of trafficking.
I agree with your thoughts that yes drug users would be better served if they were caught early and before committing crimes. unfortunately you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I don't believe the success rate for kicking drugs is very high. There is a lot of reasons for drug use. Poverty is one of the major reasons if we could fix that then maybe people would have some thing better to live for.

Answer 4

It is assumed you are referring to drug addicts within the justice system who are sentenced to incarceration rather than treatment of their addiction.
It is not easier to deal with just treatment for addicts, it is basically a humane course of dealing with a complex issue for a problem that has always been a part of the human condition. Treatment for drug addiction to understand the reason for why it is a problem for one person and not another and then replacing it with a more socially favorable behavior is simply not a concept that our justice system is capable of understanding or being able to work with. If it were, there would be a law or penal code that defended drug addiction and penalized those who opposed it and disobeyed aiding or treating drug users.
It is easier for our society, justice system, national economy to make drug addiction a crime and jail or imprison them so those who accuse, convict, sentence and fine these individuals can retain their jobs, careers, political positions and live in good neighborhoods, eat well, support the economy's national debt and insure that they do not become unemployeed, laid off, homeless, hungry and fall between the cracks of society where they are faced with true criminals and violence and live day to day with no creature comforts and find temporary solace in drugs/alcohol. Jails and prisons are a major economy in every state which employ people in millions of positions from the highest authority to the menial janitorial tasks and to maintain that class of society who pay taxes, shops everyday and feeds the government to pass laws against those who do not or cannot abide by them is a perfect solution to maintain a secure, wealthier lifestyle. If not for those people who are condemned to be the lower class in society millions of Americans would find themselves in their midst. Capitalism requires this adversity to exist and therefore needs to populate penal colonies and maintain criminal activity for it's survival.