Diamond Lifetime
- Messages
- 6,124
- Reactions
- 13,918
I didnt mean you as in you, worded that kind of funny, sorry about that.
And I do know plenty about addiction. I have to deal with mothers who report their addicted children and then get angry when I arrest their angel. I deal with victims of someone's bender-induced assault or worse. I go on raids that result in the seizure of all sorts of drugs, drug money, etc. I see the dead bodies after drug deals gone bad.
You see the effects of the criminalization, if you took the money out of drugs no more cartels, gangs and king pins. If you made drugs cheap, controlled and readily available no more crime to get them. Drug users for the most part (with the exception of meth users but even them to a lesser extent) would largely cease to be a problem to law enforcement if drugs were treated like alcohol.
I am in no way saying drugs are "good" But the war on drugs is clearly not working. There is a better way. Around here its pretty typical for a guy with a few dozen pot plants to get a longer prison stay than an assault or robbery. Working in the addiction field I have seen hundreds if not thousands of regular people who where ruined just as much by the legal system as their addiction.
Most addicts want help. Most addicts want to stop. Once you get to the addiction stage using drugs is not enjoyable, its a nightmare. But an addict cannot simply quit, they have a mental illness. Locking them up just puts a burden on the taxpayers both for enforcement and incarceration because 9 times out of ten they will be right back to using the first day out... Because they need treatment to have any hope of breaking the cycle.