Focus crime prevention on drug treatment ...

Well written, Bruce. It is too bad treatment is going to be flat funded again this year. Can you imagine if we flat funded corrections for twenty years and had spent the money on treatment.

We might have more productive, tax paying workers.

Imagine that.

Right on Bill. this column could and should be a good starting point toward fixing a massively broken and increasing failed drug war policy. But it won't be.

Police and prisons are not doctors and hospitals.

America, in the past twenty-five years, has wasted hundreds of millions dollars building prisons that only serve to make the populations of those prisons better criminals and disaffected predators. Had we spent those hundreds of billions of dollars on treatment and hospitals we could today have fewer addicts on the streets and more medical facilities available for the explosion of aging high medical demand baby boomers.

Addiction is a disease. A genetic based disease. It will never be treated by police and prisons. This disease is only spread by criminalization. Once we criminalize and addict they have few choices in life other than to sell drugs to children in order to stay high and sustain their lives.

The war on drugs is a self-perpetuating addiction and crime generating machine. A crime generating machine that relies on intolerance toward people with an unpopular genetic trait, addiction.

If addiction is a disease, a bullet is the cure. Think how much we could save if we didn't have to constantly keep rehabilitating the same people over and over. I imagine it would be hundreds of billions, whn you also consider all the indirect benefits, less police, less judicial and legal costs, less crime, and so on. Addiction is a choice.

Michael wrote:

If addiction is a disease, a bullet is the cure. Think how much we could save if we didn't have to constantly keep rehabilitating the same people over and over. I imagine it would be hundreds of billions, whn you also consider all the indirect benefits, less police, less judicial and legal costs, less crime, and so on. Addiction is a choice.

Thanks for that rendition of Hitler's solution to everything.

This forum is for discussing constitution, humane and responsible science based solutions to this public health problem that confronts our free society. Genocidal drug warriors like you are the real problem.

Addiction is a choice?
_________
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12136839/
MSNBC/AP

Scientist probes teen brains for addiction clues
U.S. anti-drug chief says daring kids to keep off drugs may backfire

WASHINGTON - Call it the science of peer pressure. When teenagers fail to just say no to drugs, Dr. Nora Volkow blames their brains, not their willpower — they lack links between some crucial brain regions that won't fully form until they're adults.

Age matters a lot when it comes to drug abuse. It's an evolving view of addiction that Volkow brings as head of the government's National Institute on Drug Abuse.
__________

National Institutes on Drug Abuse Genetics Working Group
http://www.drugabuse.gov/about/organization/G...

"Like many other psychiatric illnesses, drug abuse and dependence comprise a complex set of genetic disorders lacking a simple pattern of Mendelian inheritance. Multiple genes with relatively small effects are likely to influence vulnerability to addiction..."
-------

Addiction is a part of the human condition. Intolerance toward this unpopular genetic impairment is no different from Hitler's intolerance toward a whole range of genetic distinctions.

Drug warrior intolerance toward sick people is the real disease.

Michael wrote:

If addiction is a disease, a bullet is the cure. Think how much we could save if we didn't have to constantly keep rehabilitating the same people over and over. I imagine it would be hundreds of billions, whn you also consider all the indirect benefits, less police, less judicial and legal costs, less crime, and so on. Addiction is a choice.

Yes...picking up a drink or drug is a choice, but it is a disease jackass! So ignorant are some people. Iam a recovreing alcoholic of many years..people can be rehabilitated if they want to. I sy give them one or two chances, then it's their problem!

Recovery wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes...picking up a drink or drug is a choice, but it is a disease jackass! So ignorant are some people. Iam a recovreing alcoholic of many years..people can be rehabilitated if they want to. I sy give them one or two chances, then it's their problem!

It is not just their problem if the incurable addict is left on the street in a life of crime for economic subsistence. In that case they are the problem of EVERY INNOCENT CRIME VICTIM.

They are the problem of every tax payer who must fork over hard earned dollars to pay for more and more prison cells at an average rate of about $ 33-thousand per prisoner per year in Pennsylvania.

Heroin addicts are the problem of every American who fears terrorism because today hard core addicts around the world are the primary captive source of funding for much of the terrorism in the world. Including 70% of the Taliban's funding.

If rehab or even a long term addiction maintenance program for incurable addicts cost us $ 10-thousand or more a year while reducing the number of innocent crime victims it is money better spent than the $ 33-thousand a year we spend now on prisons. A medicalized harm reduction based on-demand drug treatment and maintenance system in the U.S. and free world could quickly alleviate these problems and costs. Drug warriors "just say no".

Compassion, science and humanity are a better and cheaper solution for addiction than intolerance and prisons.

Recovery wrote:

<quoted text>
I sy give them one or two chances, then it's their problem!

Their problem that they often solve by selling drugs to yet another generation of American children.

This drug war policy leaves the morals and ethics of drug sales exclusively in the hands of amoral drug addicts and the predatory gangster distributors. And tax free too.

aahpat wrote:

<quoted text>
Their problem that they often solve by selling drugs to yet another generation of American children.
This drug war policy leaves the morals and ethics of drug sales exclusively in the hands of amoral drug addicts and the predatory gangster distributors. And tax free too.

"The only solution to the fact that we self-centered druggies prey on the rest of you is to pamper us even more!"

And you druggies say that your drug use isn't screwing up your minds.

Don Schenk wrote:

<quoted text>
"The only solution to the fact that we self-centered druggies prey on the rest of you is to pamper us even more!"
And you druggies say that your drug use isn't screwing up your minds.

Casting unfounded aspersions, insults and personal attacks is not rebuttal.

Thank you for proving, once again, that you drug war proponents really have no responsible science based reasoning to support your intolerance.

Your belligerent thuggishness doe not refute my contentions.

aahpat wrote:

<quoted text>
Thanks for that rendition of Hitler's solution to everything.
This forum is for discussing constitution, humane and responsible science based solutions to this public health problem that confronts our free society. Genocidal drug warriors like you are the real problem.
Addiction is a choice?

Addiction to illegal drugs is absolutely a choice that is made the first time one chooses to use such substances. While I can have some understanding for addictions to painkillers or even alcohol which begin through use of legal substances, a healthy person who chooses to use heroin or cocaine makes a choice knowing that they are doing something illegal that could destroy their entire lives.

Some people can be rehabliltated and some people are just to plain dumb to change their life around....

I gotta get high.... I gotta get high.... I gotta get high....

Better yet.... do what they do in Arab Countries... Hang them,,, I bet they don't have much of a drug problem there!!!!

This cracks me up. The whole system is set-up to keep people in jails. Most of all probations are stimulated on drug testing. You have to go to SASI and pay $25 bucks when your color comes up. This a weekly thing.

OK so let's see what are most people on probation for? It's just a big cycle of generating revenue at these poor individuals expense. There is NO ONE in the court system/probation dept. that wants to help these people.

There was a guy in county with someone I knew. He was on probation for a DUI. Had to go to SASI weekly. He failed a test, went in front of a judge and asked the judge how much time he would have to do to get them (the courts/probation dept)out of his life? The judge said three months. So he said throw me in there. After three months they had nothing legally to do with him. He hasn't been back since.

The system does not give a rat's butt about any of these people. While someone I knew was in county there was a young inmate that said "see that guard over there, he's one of my best customers" The foxes are watching the hen house. It's a toal joke of a system. Anyone who has been unfortunately involved with it will tell you.

morning call editor wrote:

<quoted text>we at the morning call do not like it when others use our copy-writed slogan of "i gotta get high." please pay the morning call 20 pesos every time you use our slogan.

LOL.... You guys just crack me up!

Common Sense wrote:

<quoted text>
Addiction to illegal drugs is absolutely a choice that is made the first time one chooses to use such substances. While I can have some understanding for addictions to painkillers or even alcohol which begin through use of legal substances, a healthy person who chooses to use heroin or cocaine makes a choice knowing that they are doing something illegal that could destroy their entire lives.

Not according to the head of the National Institutes on Drug Abuse.

Talk about hypocrisy. Alcohol is a choice of people who know full well the potential for addiction.

Your legal vs. illegal argument is silly. The status has nothing to do with the medical condition of addiction. Regardless of their poor choice of intoxicants people, often as teens, being exposed to peer pressures, poverty and thrills, make back choices. Irresponsible choices. Compounding those bad choices with an unnecessary criminal process solves no problems and causes even more problems.

My solution is to, using proven clinical programs, FIRST get the addicts out of their dependence on street crime, drug dealing and prostitution for their economic sustenance. But as long as the current prohibition gives to the addict, as it does, drug dealing a viable economic alternative addicts can easily fall back into it by simply mugging, burglarizing or robbing enough victims to get a stash of drugs to sell. Sell to more children creating yet another generation of addicts.

Once we entice the addicts into a clinical system, as we today entice them into addiction, crime and drug dealing, we can help them to repair their lives under circumstances best suited to the individuals and their medical condition.

For this to succeed we need to end this system that creates a market opportunity for addicts to sell drugs. The drug war creates that market opportunity for addicts and gangsters alike.

aahpat wrote:

<quoted text>
Not according to the head of the National Institutes on Drug Abuse.
Talk about hypocrisy. Alcohol is a choice of people who know full well the potential for addiction.
Your legal vs. illegal argument is silly. The status has nothing to do with the medical condition of addiction. Regardless of their poor choice of intoxicants people, often as teens, being exposed to peer pressures, poverty and thrills, make back choices. Irresponsible choices. Compounding those bad choices with an unnecessary criminal process solves no problems and causes even more problems.
My solution is to, using proven clinical programs, FIRST get the addicts out of their dependence on street crime, drug dealing and prostitution for their economic sustenance. But as long as the current prohibition gives to the addict, as it does, drug dealing a viable economic alternative addicts can easily fall back into it by simply mugging, burglarizing or robbing enough victims to get a stash of drugs to sell. Sell to more children creating yet another generation of addicts.
Once we entice the addicts into a clinical system, as we today entice them into addiction, crime and drug dealing, we can help them to repair their lives under circumstances best suited to the individuals and their medical condition.
For this to succeed we need to end this system that creates a market opportunity for addicts to sell drugs. The drug war creates that market opportunity for addicts and gangsters alike.

The legal vs. illegal distinction is far from "silly". It's a fundamental difference in the way the addiction should be viewed. Addiction to illegal drugs begins with an illegal act, and everything that comes after it stems from that illegal act. Our "take no responsiblity" society today, which you apparently embrace, can find all kinds of excuses for this initial misdeed, which marks the beginning of the enabling process for the drug culture.

While I'm not quite so insensitive to suggest the "bullet to the brain" solution to addiction that someone else threw out, I think it is perfectly appropriate to respond to an illegal act through incarceration which, at a minimum, serves as a time period where a person is unable to continue illegal drug use. Upon release, the person again has the clear headed choice to resume usage of illegal drugs or become a productive memory of society. If they fail in that choice again, I have a tough time feeling sorry for them.

I'm not giving a free pass to those addicted to legal drugs such as alcohol or painkillers, or those whose addictions to these items lead to more powerful illegal drugs, I'm merely stating that I have a lot more sympathy for these individuals who started down the path through these means that society has deemed legal.

There is a reason certain substances have been deemed illegal. They are highly addictive substances that cause a person to act far differently than they would otherwise. The best way to prevent/cure addiction to these substances is to prevent first use, and the best way to do that is through harsh penalties for breaking these laws.

Legalize, regulate, tax. All Drugs.

Continuing policies of the past will get the same results. The problem with this argument is we have tried to do it your way. It has failed to keep drugs from kids, protect society, and rehabilitate offenders. Failed. FAILED.

If there were no illegal drugs..there'd be less addictions.
Ever wonder why the drug trade flourishes? Someone is making big bucks and it ain't just the pusher.

aahpat wrote:

<quoted text>
Not according to the head of the National Institutes on Drug Abuse.
Talk about hypocrisy. Alcohol is a choice of people who know full well the potential for addiction.
Your legal vs. illegal argument is silly. The status has nothing to do with the medical condition of addiction. Regardless of their poor choice of intoxicants people, often as teens, being exposed to peer pressures, poverty and thrills, make back choices. Irresponsible choices. Compounding those bad choices with an unnecessary criminal process solves no problems and causes even more problems.
My solution is to, using proven clinical programs, FIRST get the addicts out of their dependence on street crime, drug dealing and prostitution for their economic sustenance. But as long as the current prohibition gives to the addict, as it does, drug dealing a viable economic alternative addicts can easily fall back into it by simply mugging, burglarizing or robbing enough victims to get a stash of drugs to sell. Sell to more children creating yet another generation of addicts.
Once we entice the addicts into a clinical system, as we today entice them into addiction, crime and drug dealing, we can help them to repair their lives under circumstances best suited to the individuals and their medical condition.
For this to succeed we need to end this system that creates a market opportunity for addicts to sell drugs. The drug war creates that market opportunity for addicts and gangsters alike.

That's a heck of a magic wand you have there. You are about as out of touch as the system is.

Recovery wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes...picking up a drink or drug is a choice, but it is a disease jackass! So ignorant are some people. Iam a recovreing alcoholic of many years..people can be rehabilitated if they want to. I sy give them one or two chances, then it's their problem!

When I see YOUR doctorate in biogenetics from Cal-Berkeley I'll consider your opinion. You show me where on the human genome is the "I was born to be a drug addict gene". I'm sure it's right between the child-molester and spouse abuser genes. There are doers, and there are people who just read media crap.