AHS Views

I’m constantly scanning the news looking for information on the drug scene. A few times a week I see news items about funding being cut for drug courts and other programs aimed at rehabilitation. These programs not only get people the addiction help they need, they also cut down on crime considerably since a lot of crimes are committed either because the person was on drugs or was trying to get them - or get money for them.

It amazes me how little focus there is in the U.S. on rehabilitation. True, there are millions of dollars put into drug prevention programs here and there, and some put into rehabilitation, but considering that we have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other country, and much of the crime is drug-related, and it’s more expensive to imprison someone than to rehabilitate them, you’d think the government would make some serious changes.

We’ve been imprisoning people for non-violent drug-related crime for a long time. Obviously, it’s not working. If it were we’d have few people in prison, not more.

I’d like to hear others’ ideas about why our country is so oriented towards punishment instead of rehabilitation. And what it will take to get the government oriented toward addiction help services instead of simply imprisoning them and then sending them back out into the world with even more problems than they came in with