Is It Right to Imprison People for Drug Use?
We all know the “War on Drugs” isn’t working. If the aim was to fight drug use, it only made things worse. So here we are, 2016, and illicit drug use has been increasing. Therefore, we should ask ourselves the question: is it possible that how we are currently handling the drug issue in our country isn’t working? Next, if it isn’t working, then what can we do differently?
Most of the states in America are no-tolerance states when it comes to illegal drugs. Law office Lewis & Dickstein illustrate, on their blog, the penalties for marijuana drug use in Michigan:
- jail or prison time (from 93 days to 1 year for a misdemeanor)
- work release
- mandatory drug counseling
- mandatory community service
- electronic monitoring
- steep fines
- community service
- Six month driver’s license suspension
The state of Michigan tends to crack down on drugs. This is only one example out of many, on the lack of tolerance the courts have across the country for drug use. In many states, people caught with small time drugs such as marijuana are treated as if they’re criminals. Ask yourself this: is it a crime to have an addiction?
Addiction is an illness. Often chemical or psychological in nature. Should we begin punishing people for not having two legs? Should we punish people for being bi-polar? Of course, we have punished people for those things in the past, but we don’t do that now because we have a scientific and rational understanding for most ailments.
Yet, despite our scientific understanding, we still punish people for being sick. Drug abuse should absolutely not be treated as a criminal offense, let alone a misdemeanor. The moment someone is thrown into jail, they are then “in” the system for life. How can we expect individuals suffering with a disease of the body and mind to reintegrate into society after being jailed, labeled as a criminal, and not given proper rehabilitation?
We once punished people for mental illness, and today, imprisonment of drug addicted people is no different. Our jails and prisons are packed with people on drug charges. This is not economically feasible for our country or for the people whose lives are plagued with addiction. We need major reform.
Our best option would be to learn from other countries who have decided to take a different route, and help those with drug addictions to turn their lives around.
Portugal is a perfect example: they decriminalized drugs and through a series of programs, cut drug addiction in their country by 50%. This number was completely unprecedented to onlookers.
Social scientists and psychologists weren’t surprised though, because there are several studies out there that back the possibilities of this. If you’ve ever taken a psychology course, you may have come across The Rat Park Study. Basically, the rat park study, involved rats. Some rats were left alone in their own cage with drugged water and those rats became addicted. But then, their counterparts who stayed in the “rat park” with plenty of toys, food and other rats to play with and given the choice of drugged water or normal water, the rats in rat park didn’t go to the drugged water.
We can tie the human version of Rat Park to the soldiers of Vietnam. Many of the soldiers in Vietnam, in fact most of them, became highly addicted to heroine. What is truly amazing, is that once many of them returned to the states, they no longer used the drug. They didn’t feel they had a reason to.
Perhaps the real problem in our country is the environment on the economic and social fronts. Someday, drugs will be decriminalized, and when that happens, our country will be benefit tenfold.