Why We Can’t Arrest Our Way Out of Addiction

Why We Can’t Arrest Our Way Out of Addiction

As political powers shift and times change across the nation, the age-old questions of how to tackle the American addiction problem comes up once again. It does not help that the U.S. is currently going through what may be its worst ever addiction epidemic. Now, the U.S. is in the grips of a terrible opiate crisis, and we need solutions to these problems now. Some say we need to imprison drug addicts and alcoholics as such individuals do commit crimes, but we can’t arrest our way out of addiction.

This erroneous concept of a criminalized approach to addiction applies to all age ranges and all aspects of drug abuse.

There are currently more than two million Americans sitting in prisons across the country, many for non-violent drug crimes. That’s about seven-hundred people for every one-hundred-thousand residents. It’s a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world. Has mass incarceration helped us beat the drug problem so far? No. Drug addiction is at the worst point that it has been at in several decades, possibly at its worst point ever. Mass incarceration of drug offenders only fills already overstuffed jail cells and costs Americans more tax dollars.

Silly Cops Trying To Arrest Someone

This erroneous concept of a criminalized approach to addiction applies to all age ranges and all aspects of drug abuse. For example, the Monitoring the Future survey points out is that as marijuana legalization continues to move forward, more teens will have access to the drug, whether they are of legal age or not. Just the increased legality of the drug and the increased prevalence of the drug in states where it is legal will result in more people using the drug. Nine states have legalized marijuana: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine. We definitely can’t arrest our way out of that problem.

Incarceration Does not Fix the Problem

The above reasons alone are enough to shun criminalization and jail time as “solutions” to drug use. But what about the fact that jail time doesn’t actually do anything to help an addict? What about the fact that a prison inmate who had an addiction prior to his or her arrest is just as likely to go back to drug abuse after they get out of jail as they were before they went to jail?

Prison cells are not drug rehabs. While an addict might go through a “cold turkey” detox while in a prison cell, they will not receive the intensive therapeutic help and behavioral assistance that they need to get to the bottom of their addiction habits. Such mental crisis does not go away simply because of lack of exposure to the individual’s substance of choice. Those underlying issues that caused the addiction in the first place are just as likely to crop up at a later time once an ex-con is out and about.

A Serious Problem that Needs to be Dealt with Correctly

About one-hundred and forty-two Americans die from drug use every day. More than sixty-thousand lost their lives in 2016 from drug overdoses alone. That’s more than the total number of lives lost from homicides and motor vehicle accidents combined. We can’t approach addiction with a punitive, stereotype-driven inertia to simply incarcerate, incarcerate, and incarcerate. It never fixes the problem.

We need to rehabilitate our addicts. We need to give them help for their addictions. We need to put addicts through recovery programs where they can focus on both the physiological and psychological aspects of their addictions. Only in treating addicts, giving them the care they need, and making addicts into non-addicts will we resolve the current American addiction crisis.


Sources:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/civil-wars/articles/2017-11-30/jeff-sessions-new-war-on-drugs-is-the-wrong-way-to-fix-the-opioid-crisis

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-i-sederer-md/drug-war_b_1833357.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/28/opinions/marijuana-history-opioid-crisis-sessions-dufton-opinion/index.html 

AUTHOR

Ren

After working in addiction treatment for several years, Ren now travels the country, studying drug trends and writing about addiction in our society. Ren is focused on using his skill as an author and counselor to promote recovery and effective solutions to the drug crisis. Connect with Ren on LinkedIn.

NARCONON ARROWHEAD

DRUG EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION