should drug addicts receive help, or clutter up pointless prison space?

Question

if you have money, buy a prison,
IE; drop cig butt on floor £80 fine,
better build some more Jails, no bails

Answer 1

How shameful and despicable to have such heartless souls on here! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS A CRUTCH! Whether it be shopping, T.V., video games or food, everyone has THEIR way of dealing with difficulties in life. A good dose of compassion would do almost everyone of you, a lot of justice.

For all you ignorant, heartless souls, addiction is a feeling of lack that has a spiritual basis. EVERYONE and ANYONE can give into addictions when they don't understand the feelings of lack and seek to fill that lack. They try to numb the pain/fill in the lack with the wrong kind of thing.

Most of your answers are utter filth. Most of you are addicted to FEAR in the media and on film. It's called sensationalism. So..since you're addicted to fear and sensationalistic films and YOU lash out at others in life due to your infected soul and YOU spread all the sensationalised ill feelings, should the humanitarians send YOU off to an island or fill YOU with bullets?

What shall we do with the addict in YOU?!

YOU talk about your tax dollars?! We're talking about life!

YOU think YOU don't know anyone who is an addict? Think again! We all know SOMEONE.

My kudos go out to Tunefactory who has the courage and good sense of himself to put everyone straight. YOU all ought to be honored to have read his touching answer. Gain from it!

AND when life throws YOU tumbleweeds and YOU look for a way to escape, remember how little compassion YOU showed others and expect the same. YOU chose YOUR lesson-COMPASSION!

So when is YOUR next cig, cup of coffee, violent film, shopping spree, orgy, beer, day at the races, poker night, all-nighter on Yahoo Answers or midnight snack of a pint of ice cream?

P.S. For those of YOU who mentioned gangsters...YOU can add stereotyping to YOUR list. Not every addict is a gangster! Very far from it. For every "gangster" that's an addict, there is a blue-collar worker, a mother, a brother, and child and man of faith! If YOU disbelieve this, then YOU need to pull YOURSELF away from those fictional movies and take a look around at the real world.

Answer 2

I'm saddened to read some of these answers. It just goes to show how insensitive people can be to others in general [addicts or not] It is uneducated people that would say something like "sending them off to another country" or stash them in a hole or somehign like that.

I'm a recovering addict and no of you can say ANYTHING about what I went through, NONE. And if I did, it would be little compared to the stories I've heard during detox and recovery. For myself I can say I've been clean of drugs for a year and nine months and sober from alcohol for a year and one month because of a relapse during a family party. The next day I was back into my twelve step program, serching myself for what I did wrong. I digress.

I believe addicts willing to better themselves exist and they deserve to be treated with the same respect your parents taught you. About jail or rehab for drug offenders? I say keep making obligatory for them to go to AA and NA meetings. 30 meetings in 30 days. If that doesn't change their minds, then they really don't wanna help themselves.

Addiction is a sickness some of us are born with and most of us inherit. Some people are addicts and don't even know it until they try a drug or get drunk. Some don't become addicted to anything but they pass it down to their children genetically. ANY of you could be one. I hope people were a bit more educated about the subject.

I was lucky mt step-father works with people with these kind of prolems and I came out and asked to be put in rehab. My life has change drastically ever since my first sober day. Sadly according to some of you, I shoudn't have been so lucky.

s/m/33

PS. It's true. An addict always and addict, there is no cure, but there is recovery. There IS a difference between an addict and a recovering addict.

Answer 3

Nope, sometimes the treatments are worse than the drug. Uh, Methadone - anyway You say - Most addicts when released from prison will go out and use drugs and commit more crimes to get money to use drugs if they did not receive treatment while they were locked up. Did you know some addicts like to get locked up just so they get a better high when they get out. Detoxing and cold turkey are the best ways to kick a habit. Detox is pure hell and if that doesn't make you want to stay clean your hopes of doing so just got dimmer.

Answer 4

Though I hate to fall out, even on a small point with someone who seems to agree with me, I feel that I should point out that it costs over £30,000, not £10,000 to keep someone in prison.
Drug addicts receive little rehabilitative help in prisons, and learn from more successful people than they formerly were, how to commit crimes that can finance their habit once they return to the real world.
It is cheaper to treat them, even compulsorily, in the community.
The matter of sentencing of paedophiles is something entirely seperate, but, since it's been brought up. Paedophiles should, of course get proper sentences.
The judges that an earlier responder was talking about who let paedophiles walk did so in what they considered would have bee minor sentencing cases. The people in the cases would, in law, have received minimal sentences for the crimes they committed.
The community sentences that they received were an alternative, given by judges who are completely cheesed off with the conflicting instructions that they get from the Home Office. One moment they are being told to get really tough with the sentences that they impose, the next they are being told to ease up, because there is not enough space in prisons.
So, their sentencing reflects:
1 - The complete inadequacy of the government to adequately cater for the measures they instructed should be implemented. Which government has been told, time and time again, throughout the past 10 years, that more prison space would be needed if they were to continue being "tough on crime", by the Police, by the Prison Service, by the Probation Service, and by Judges and Magistrates throughout the land.
2 - The total dissatisfaction that judges are experiencing with a government which is constantly trying to interfere with them doing their jobs.
Prison is a nonsense answer to a social problem.

Answer 5

addiction is an illness - so is ignorance...

what's the point in wasting £10000 a year imprisoning someone who can't help themselves?

for half the price you can put an addict through counselling, which WILL lessen the chance of reoffending (imprisoning people just teaches them new ways to break the law)

how many people are locked up for selling a bit of weed? who did they hurt? what about people who've not paid fines (tv license, littering, parking tickets etc...)? why lock these people up? they're not a threat to anybody...

the peados on the other hand? we let these monsters walk free because the prisons are too full? they should be locked away in the darkness, never allowed to see the light of day again - i know some of them can't help themselves either, but we should protect the children. these monsters offend over and over again, and publicising them makes them go under ground, putting kids at even more risk - i say castrate all the sick f*ck*rs

Answer 6

The aim of prison is to punish, and then rehabilitate offenders. If we continue our current policy apropos drugs, it is better for society that drug users be imprisoned, as they can then be made to have treatment in a secure environment, and they are not on the streets committing crimes to fund their habit.

However, I would legalise all drugs, and have them sold at pharmacies. This would ensure that the drugs are of good quality (not cut), removes the gangster element, control the price and remove the air of mystery and of rebellion that can attract people to drugs in the first place .

If you abuse legal drugs, you get two chances at volutary rehabilitation in the community - after that it will be detention in a secure mental institution until you are judged to no longer be a threat to yourself or society.

Answer 7

I used to think drug addicts deserved everything they got
but now one of my nearest and dearest has succumbed to the vile habit and i have changed my views. I have had a close up of the evils of drugs, sitting in the intensive care unit and just praying for my son to come through it.
I really think people have to experience these facts before coming to any conclusion regarding drug addicts.
It is indeed a disease and a very pitiful one at that.

Answer 8

I don't believe being a drug addict in itself is actually a crime so no they should be locked up. However, seeing as a large number of addicts use crime to fund their habit then yes they should be locked up. Crime is crime. End of. Cold turkey is the way to go!! (there is no way the government should be sued / accused of breaching human rights for making prisoners go cold turkey. The very notion of this is RIDICULOUS quite frankly)

Answer 9

Why not just kill all drug users,thats what good old Adolf,and Uncle Joe Stalin would have done,and im sure the problem would be solved very quickly...i hope this helps

Answer 10

Perhaps we should just stick 'em on a ferry to France. They get thrown off 20 miles out. If they make it back, it's straight to prison.

That way, we don't put put any of the really weak, poor, sad idiots in jail.