these draconian, antiquated drug laws is immense. Nearly $33 billion each year isspent on keeping prisoners behind bars in federal and state prisons for drug-related charges. Of course, this doesnât count the incalculable costs of lives ruined and families destroyed.
I want to stress, it is not a crime in the United States to have the physical illness of addiction. But if the object of your addiction, such as illicit drugs, is illegal, you could be arrested and prosecuted for the mere act of possessing it. The situation places the person suffering from addiction in a situation of continually interacting with the criminal underworld rather than with medical professionals.
Numerous studies show itâs much less expensive to treat people with drug problems than to toss them into prison. A 1994 Rand analysis concluded that for every extra dollar spent on addiction treatment, taxpayers save $7.46 in societal expenses, including the cost of incarceration.
The United States has about 5 percent of the worldâs population, but we have 25 percent of the worldâs prisonersâwe incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on earth. We have earned the unenviable nickname of Incarceration Nation.
An article titled âMedicine and the Epidemic of Incarceration in the United Statesâ published in the
New England Journal of Medicine
reviewed the deplorable plight of drug-addicted and mentally ill inmates in our nationâs prisons and concluded:
Locking up millions of people for drug-related crimes has failed as a public-safety strategy and has harmedpublic health in the communities to which these men and women return. A new evidence-based approach is desperately needed. We believe that in addition to capitalizing on the public health opportunities that incarceration presents, the medical community and policymakers must advocate for alternatives to imprisonment, drug-policy reform, and increased public awareness of this crisis in order to reduce mass incarceration and its collateral consequence.
Chapter 5
The Process of Effective Treatment
I have a chronic disease called diabetes. Thereâs no cure for my chronic disease, but I maintain a fairly normal and, some would say, highly successful life. How do I do it? I follow a strict regimen of medications formulated to address my particular disease. I also modify my lifestyle to minimize the risks associated with my disease.
Now as a diabetic, not to mention a physician, I would no more think that I could treat my disease by sitting around in a room with other diabetics and commiserating about our problems than thinking I could cure it by eating a diet of only chocolate cake. These are but ridiculous propositionsâyet, that is, in effect, the expectation we have for those who suffer from the chronic disease of alcohol and drug addiction.
In western Europe, drug policies differ from country to country but focus first and foremost on providing evidence-based treatment to addicts rather than criminalization of substance abuse. Portugal has decriminalized drug possession in small amountsaltogether. Germany, too, focuses on treatment, but still aggressively pursues drug trafficking. While still criminalizing possession, German prosecutors have moved away from pressing charges to emphasizing treatment. The Netherlands, famous for its legalized cannabis bars, nevertheless has taken new steps to crack down on the smuggling of so-called hard drugs, such as opium and heroin. The result of these harm-reduction programs has been a massive decrease in new drugs users, with Portugal decreasing by 38 percent, the Netherlands by 24 percent, and Germany by 17 percent.
The standard for addiction treatment in the United Statesâunlike all other Western nationsâis a program based on a seventy-five-year-old philosophy in which sharing stories is the focus. The organization that offers this philosophy, Alcoholics Anonymous, makes no claims
I want to stress, it is not a crime in the United States to have the physical illness of addiction. But if the object of your addiction, such as illicit drugs, is illegal, you could be arrested and prosecuted for the mere act of possessing it. The situation places the person suffering from addiction in a situation of continually interacting with the criminal underworld rather than with medical professionals.
Numerous studies show itâs much less expensive to treat people with drug problems than to toss them into prison. A 1994 Rand analysis concluded that for every extra dollar spent on addiction treatment, taxpayers save $7.46 in societal expenses, including the cost of incarceration.
The United States has about 5 percent of the worldâs population, but we have 25 percent of the worldâs prisonersâwe incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on earth. We have earned the unenviable nickname of Incarceration Nation.
An article titled âMedicine and the Epidemic of Incarceration in the United Statesâ published in the
New England Journal of Medicine
reviewed the deplorable plight of drug-addicted and mentally ill inmates in our nationâs prisons and concluded:
Locking up millions of people for drug-related crimes has failed as a public-safety strategy and has harmedpublic health in the communities to which these men and women return. A new evidence-based approach is desperately needed. We believe that in addition to capitalizing on the public health opportunities that incarceration presents, the medical community and policymakers must advocate for alternatives to imprisonment, drug-policy reform, and increased public awareness of this crisis in order to reduce mass incarceration and its collateral consequence.
Chapter 5
The Process of Effective Treatment
I have a chronic disease called diabetes. Thereâs no cure for my chronic disease, but I maintain a fairly normal and, some would say, highly successful life. How do I do it? I follow a strict regimen of medications formulated to address my particular disease. I also modify my lifestyle to minimize the risks associated with my disease.
Now as a diabetic, not to mention a physician, I would no more think that I could treat my disease by sitting around in a room with other diabetics and commiserating about our problems than thinking I could cure it by eating a diet of only chocolate cake. These are but ridiculous propositionsâyet, that is, in effect, the expectation we have for those who suffer from the chronic disease of alcohol and drug addiction.
In western Europe, drug policies differ from country to country but focus first and foremost on providing evidence-based treatment to addicts rather than criminalization of substance abuse. Portugal has decriminalized drug possession in small amountsaltogether. Germany, too, focuses on treatment, but still aggressively pursues drug trafficking. While still criminalizing possession, German prosecutors have moved away from pressing charges to emphasizing treatment. The Netherlands, famous for its legalized cannabis bars, nevertheless has taken new steps to crack down on the smuggling of so-called hard drugs, such as opium and heroin. The result of these harm-reduction programs has been a massive decrease in new drugs users, with Portugal decreasing by 38 percent, the Netherlands by 24 percent, and Germany by 17 percent.
The standard for addiction treatment in the United Statesâunlike all other Western nationsâis a program based on a seventy-five-year-old philosophy in which sharing stories is the focus. The organization that offers this philosophy, Alcoholics Anonymous, makes no claims
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