Drugs do lots of things. They can cause pleasure and pain simultaneously. They can make you seem cool to some and yet hated by others. They can rip homes apart. They act like some unseen force, working in the shadows.
We all know someone who has taken the step from recreational use to being unable to stop. People we love are being destroyed from the inside out by drugs.
Many people smarter than I have tried to stop the epidemic. They have used force, punishing users and sellers alike. Fines and prison time doled out for each deserving offence. They have tried persuasion, depicting before and after head-shots, the after looking garish and bedeviled. Pre-addiction versus post-addiction. Millions of tax-payer dollars are spent trying to control
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It is said that true friends are hard to find. Especially to people who have a hard time putting themselves out there. Being the object of someone’s ridicule can be fatal to an addict. It is easy to judge someone who has an addiction to the feelings drugs provide. It is easy to find many reasons to look the other way. There have been people in my life who have stopped to talk to me. Those people first became my friends. Then, they became my family. After that, they became my community. That community accepts me for who I am. Regardless of my dark tendencies, my needs, or my past. It’s in them that I find that need …show more content…
Being punished for drug use creates that familiar feeling of unworthiness felt as a child. The only way to fix that feeling is to use more drugs. We as a society are convinced that we need to lock up addicts and users. I used to feel the same way. I wonder though if we might just be creating a vicious cycle. What if our government used a portion of the money used to punish addicts for more pro-active solutions. Many problems are a product of many causes coming together. What could we do to prevent people from needing drugs? Are parents prepared to raise children? Do they have the support system in place to help raise their little ones? Is the saying, “It takes a village”, truer than we
The creation of drug courts has had many positive effects on millions of lives and has helped with keeping certain familiar faces out of court. Though due to are countries fiscal crisis many programs have been cut or expansion has ceased. The criminal justice systems cost roughly 70 billion annual on the corrections system which is because of over reliance on incarceration. Instead of spending so much to increate people the courts could be sending them to reform programs that end
The main issue when it comes to drugs in the United States is the inefficient policies and sentencing laws that have been created. Also, the injustices within these policies pertaining primarily to race. Once the “war on drugs” was claimed the only way the government and law enforcement saw fit to handling this skyrocketing issue was to incarcerate offenders. Although this solution worked for a while, other alternatives needed to be made. However, these alternatives were not made and this left the drug policies, sentencing laws, and injustices at a standstill.
The drinking age in America has been unchanged over many years but I believe that this is one area of law that should stopped being overlooked as it may be the cause for many unforeseen negative effects. The amount of taxpayers money that is spent on the current law system is outrageous for many reasons, one reason is the number of people in jail or correctional facilities. As we move on to try and better our society in gender inequality and many other areas this is a area that deserves to be targeted as well. One of the ways we could limit the number of people in the law system is ridding the system of unjust laws. Another way is to try to teach people the effects of using alcohol in a responsible manner.
The fight against drug use is not just an individual’s effort. Fighting drug use and stopping drug abusers requires a collective effort. State governments’ agencies, nonprofit organizations, health care providers and even friends and relatives must work to reduce the number of people willing to buy and use
As of September 26, 2015, there is a total of 93,821 inmates in prison for drug offenses, which is equivalent to 48.4 percent of the prison population. The use of illegal narcotics has been an issue within the country for decades; however, is incarceration the way to solve this problem? I think not. During the late 1960’s, poverty was a substantial issue within urban cities and secluded rural areas. On the other hand, recreational drug usage promoted by fashionable young, white Americans as a symbol of social upheaval and youthful rebellion coincided with the deprivation within many of these areas.
Heroin overdoses are no stranger to the streets of Huntington, WV. The opioid based drug Fentanyl is taking lifes left and right! The local WV DHHR stated that they are currently over budget for Overdose deaths this year, costing more than 2 million dollars. It is a sad day when our own government is over budget 7 months into the year.
The prevalence of opioid drug-related overdose has risen progressively over the past two decades becoming one of the leading causes of death in the United States. According to Center for Disease Control, drug overdoses accounted for 52,404 U.S. deaths, including 33,091 (63.1%) that involved an opioid in 2015 (Rudd, Seth, David & Scholl, 2016). To date, the numbers are continuously snowballing and it has been a major factor in the burgeoning costs of healthcare in the United States. In fact, the economic burden of opioid abuse cost the nation a staggering amount of $78.5 billion a year, taking into account the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and even goes beyond issue of criminal justice (Florence, Zhou, Luo &
It becomes a part of them and they feel they require it to survive. Louie often headed down this same path, however he continued to trudge on because he believed “A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain” (35). With the same mindset, lives can be turned around and faced down a better path. Addicts must find hope in themselves to overcome their challenge and work towards a brighter
Only 18.3% (337,882) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug” (p. 23). Therefore, the individuals who are likely to enter the already overcrowded prisons may be users and the actual not distributors themselves. Thus, prison space that is intended to be reserved for murders and sexual predators is instead being occupied by substance
Drug Addiction Imagine a life where someone is controlled by something that doesn't have a pulse, controlled by a substance that they can see ruining their life but for some reason they can't control the outcome. Substance abuse costs the health care system about $11 billion, with overall costs reaching $193 billion. That $11 Billion dollars could go to treating the addiction rather than treating the outcome, and instead of locking up low level drug offenders, we as a society should help them through their difficult time. And according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), approximately 27 million Americans, or 10.2% of the American population over the age of 12 reported using illicit drugs in 2014. 10% of our society is
government provides help to drug addicts, such as helping them find jobs and providing them with housing, instead of locking them up or punishing them, the cost of drug control in the United States will increase significantly. The most important reason for taking punishment is that the US government does not expect to gain economic benefits and support by providing help to drug addicts. On the contrary, they want to spend the least amount of money to reduce drug trade as effectively as possible. Let's imagine that when the US government punishes drug addicts, they only need to build a prison to isolate drug addicts, and hire some prison guards to watch them until they no longer crave drugs, or simply fine drug addicts. These are the most effective and cheapest means of arresting drugs.
Addiction is the number one cause of death in the US. Addiction can run in the family and be passed down through genes. Generally, that’s how addiction starts but it can start by recreational use, and then turn into something far more serious. In order to break the addiction, there is a 12 step program to follow, but one must be willing to admit there is a problem. Recovery is hard, but it is possible to maintain.
Despite the government's “best” efforts, drug use and addiction rates continue to rise, and the criminalization of drug
We have been fighting drug abuse for almost a century. The war on drugs is a growing problem in America everyday. This war is becoming an unfortunate loss. Our courts, hospitals, and prisons are continuously being filled with drug abusers. Violent crime the ravages our neighborhood is a result of the drug trade.
This leads to the question of whether the justice system is doing an adequate job of dealing with drug addiction. Instead of incarcerating people for drug abuse, an alternative is treating victims by rehab and treatment. This paper will exam why treatment is the superior option for