Background, I'm no expert on drugs or addiction but there is a general push for drugs to no longer be seen as a criminal matter but as a health matter. That sets up 2 sides, the yes, the no but there's also another.
Both.
There's some pushes to decriminalise illicit drugs and drop it all fairly & squarely within the health realm which I'd politely say isn't coping with it now.
I knew a couple with kids and small business, successful small business. They smoked a bit of dope and when that happened I would go home, it increased and we drifted apart. What I didn't know was they were also beginning to use Methamphetamine, in fact it turns out they were high functioning addicts for a number of years before finally the unavoidable decline began. The decline was horrible to say the least. The husband was attacked and went to hospital several times. It ended up with a lost business, they lost their house and all assets, a divorce followed, then came prostitution, violence against police and medical staff, theft from family & strangers. It's ruined their lives, their parents lives, their children's lives. It is an utter shameful mess and I can only say I'm glad I wasn't close by to watch it because I would've been lost as to what to do to help.
In the end one of them is on the road to recovery health wise after a jail stint but there is no way to repair the damage that's been done.
Now if its solely a health matter, I need to see how that looks on paper because at the time when an intervention by medical professionals might, stress might have helped I for one thought they were just smoking dope & had no idea they were on hard drugs.
Crime, it isn't a sole answer either but somehow we have a problem because if we as a society were able to cut supply tomorrow, then drugs would be in short supply and addicts would jump over to another type of drug to fill the gap & the demand for the missing drug rises, there's more importation/production incentive.
I think there is no one answer, I think society needs a dozen keys to this puzzle. One of them might be doubling the penalties with each repeat offence. Get a 50% reduction in sentence for helping to prosecute & convict the next person up the line BUT the person convicted must go into a rehabilitation programme, regular drug testing and be found clean at the end of it. to get their reduction.
There has to be a serious penalty joined with a serious incentive to get clean and point the finger at the next person up the line. Can't have just a harsher penalty, there has to be a genuine incentive offer with set treatment.
Hopefully the random drug testing that happens ocaasionally with RBT becomes common place, test for one, test for the other.
No, its probably correct that penalties will not solve the problem. we see that in Asian countries that have the death penalty for drug offences and the Phillipines where it's alleged drug dealers and addicts have been gunned down as well clamped down harshly by authorities. Drugs remain no matter what becuase I think the addictive nature of humans is never going away and the lure of big money still draws people in despite the incredibly high risk and brutal penalty.
But I think taking people out of the game by penalties & rehab on a larger scale is one of the keys to the puzzle not in eliminating drugs but at least reducing the number of addicts.
I don't know if there's the political will and the other trouble is the meth epidemic is only starting to become readily apparent to those outside the realm of these drugs. When it gets to this point, we've lost a big chunk of a generation and we need to move very rapidly & decisively to curb the damage for younger ones still not thinking of dabbling.
I think the entertainment industry has a big hand to play in demonising drugs but empathising with addicts. The Hollywood effect of glorifying drugs or mocking the dangers started before Cheech & Chong.
And yes, I don't think a shaded tent prison in the desert is such a bad idea either
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