Prop 5 - the last time
I have one last plea for Prop 5 to pass. It would be tragic if 6 and 9 pass and not 5. 5 will reduce costs by billions of dollars and treat addicts like every other addict.
Prisons are for the pushers, the dealers, the skanks, the thugs, and the violent; not the addicts.
Addiction to drugs should not be treated as criminal. Problematic drug use should be dealt with like any other addiction—with treatment. We should not spend billions of dollars on prisons to simply accommodate addicts. The war on drugs should be restructured immediately, focusing on the violent offenders not the everyday users. And governmental regulation, similar to alcohol limits, should be in put into effect instead.
We need to understand that being addicted to any drug is a serious problem but treatment, not jail time, is the key to success. Alcoholics, for instance, go through an intense sobering process that requires the efforts of family, friends, the government and their community. But most of them endure this within the safety of loved ones, not near the violent criminals of the prison system. The treatment of alcoholism without jail time is viewed as normal in American society. Also with other addictions, like prescription drugs, no jail time is required for overuse. As a matter of fact, citizens can overuse alcohol, prescription drugs, food, nicotine, and sex and not receive one day of jail time as long as they stay in the boundaries of regulation. The mere use or overuse of a certain drug is not cause for imprisonment. The ineffective laws of today that focus on possession need to change to protect the drug user from the drug dealer and to protect the addict from gaining a foothold in the underground of the American black market.
We don’t build prisons for alcoholics, prescription drug addicts, food addicts, or sex addicts, so why should we build prisons for drug addicts? The current prison time for drug possession is insane and can create violent criminals from the time spent behind bars. In California we have proposition 5 on the ballot this Nov 4th, 2008 and the prop states this:
(e) California’s corrections system does not provide meaningful rehabilitation services to most inmates and parolees. Nonviolent offenders can languish for years behind bars without education, vocational training, or rehabilitation programs of any kind.
So even though we house these non-violent criminals in prison, the system does not provide enough alternatives to their addiction besides jail time. Those in favor of prison time for drug use, argue that prison time should be the only deterrent needed in the fight against addiction and drug use. If that was true, then addicts being released from prison would stop using and since most don’t, prison time is obviously ineffective. But unfortunately, prison time can have the opposite affect and produce more violent criminals who can now use the cruel drug dealers they met behind bars in their everyday lives. A non-violent drug user is not the same as a brutal drug kingpin and the laws should be changed to reflect that.
When we talk about changing laws, the question that needs to be asked is: Why are some drugs illegal? Some say legalizing certain drugs will cause an increase in violence. To that, I ask another question: is it the drug itself that causes violence or is it the underground market and the sellers that create the vicious atmosphere? I’d say the latter with the exception being PCP, as violent tendencies can be increased by using it. But with most drugs, the affects are quite the opposite, they are inhibitors or downers causing a person to mellow out and slow down. Violence is mostly in the process of selling and in the underground drug culture. So again, why are drugs illegal? I’ve heard some say that more people will use drugs and the current users would use more. Certainly a spike in drug use during the first years of legality would be seen (mostly because we could properly record usage) but I ask this question instead: What are the reasons why we have sober people? Are sober people drug-free because it’s illegal? Surely some non-users maybe tempted to use if it’s legal, but again for the vast majority of people, the current reasons of not using will stay the same, even if legal. For instance, it is legal for someone to jump out of plane, facing death in the face, and land safely with a parachute. It’s legal, so I should try it right? Not in a million years will I try that; I think it’s insane. But just because I and many others think jumping out of planes is insane, is it not enough reason to make it criminal to those that wish to try it. If jumping out of planes suddenly becomes illegal, we would see a huge increase in deaths in the black market skydiving flights due to unregulated safety measures. The drugs themselves do not cause violence and only a small increase in usage would be seen in the legalization of drugs.
The concern to me is not whether drugs should be legal; the question is what is the best way to legalize certain drugs while protecting the safety of average citizens. They answer is slow decriminalization and regulation. Simply putting pen to paper and making all drugs legal would create chaos, mostly with the underground sellers, but certainly it would create panic in the communities and technically with other legal mind-altering substances, regulation seems to work the best. Alcohol has many regulations: the legal age to drink is 21, citizens cannot drive while drunk, cannot be in public places while intoxicated and cannot operate heavy machinery, to name a few. To sell alcohol, a business must apply, meet certain preconditions and obtain a license. Prescription drugs have similar regulations and so do cigarettes. The initial goal is not to create local drug stores, but simply to reduce the number of arrests for possession, saving billion of dollars in overhead processing. This money can go back to citizens or used by the police departments in fighting the violent sellers and kingpins of the drug culture. Regulation is the key to success in providing safe alternatives to the, expensive, threatening, and absolutely corrupted system currently in use.
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Prisons are for the pushers, the dealers, the skanks, the thugs, and the violent; not the addicts.
Addiction to drugs should not be treated as criminal. Problematic drug use should be dealt with like any other addiction—with treatment. We should not spend billions of dollars on prisons to simply accommodate addicts. The war on drugs should be restructured immediately, focusing on the violent offenders not the everyday users. And governmental regulation, similar to alcohol limits, should be in put into effect instead.
We need to understand that being addicted to any drug is a serious problem but treatment, not jail time, is the key to success. Alcoholics, for instance, go through an intense sobering process that requires the efforts of family, friends, the government and their community. But most of them endure this within the safety of loved ones, not near the violent criminals of the prison system. The treatment of alcoholism without jail time is viewed as normal in American society. Also with other addictions, like prescription drugs, no jail time is required for overuse. As a matter of fact, citizens can overuse alcohol, prescription drugs, food, nicotine, and sex and not receive one day of jail time as long as they stay in the boundaries of regulation. The mere use or overuse of a certain drug is not cause for imprisonment. The ineffective laws of today that focus on possession need to change to protect the drug user from the drug dealer and to protect the addict from gaining a foothold in the underground of the American black market.
We don’t build prisons for alcoholics, prescription drug addicts, food addicts, or sex addicts, so why should we build prisons for drug addicts? The current prison time for drug possession is insane and can create violent criminals from the time spent behind bars. In California we have proposition 5 on the ballot this Nov 4th, 2008 and the prop states this:
(e) California’s corrections system does not provide meaningful rehabilitation services to most inmates and parolees. Nonviolent offenders can languish for years behind bars without education, vocational training, or rehabilitation programs of any kind.
So even though we house these non-violent criminals in prison, the system does not provide enough alternatives to their addiction besides jail time. Those in favor of prison time for drug use, argue that prison time should be the only deterrent needed in the fight against addiction and drug use. If that was true, then addicts being released from prison would stop using and since most don’t, prison time is obviously ineffective. But unfortunately, prison time can have the opposite affect and produce more violent criminals who can now use the cruel drug dealers they met behind bars in their everyday lives. A non-violent drug user is not the same as a brutal drug kingpin and the laws should be changed to reflect that.
When we talk about changing laws, the question that needs to be asked is: Why are some drugs illegal? Some say legalizing certain drugs will cause an increase in violence. To that, I ask another question: is it the drug itself that causes violence or is it the underground market and the sellers that create the vicious atmosphere? I’d say the latter with the exception being PCP, as violent tendencies can be increased by using it. But with most drugs, the affects are quite the opposite, they are inhibitors or downers causing a person to mellow out and slow down. Violence is mostly in the process of selling and in the underground drug culture. So again, why are drugs illegal? I’ve heard some say that more people will use drugs and the current users would use more. Certainly a spike in drug use during the first years of legality would be seen (mostly because we could properly record usage) but I ask this question instead: What are the reasons why we have sober people? Are sober people drug-free because it’s illegal? Surely some non-users maybe tempted to use if it’s legal, but again for the vast majority of people, the current reasons of not using will stay the same, even if legal. For instance, it is legal for someone to jump out of plane, facing death in the face, and land safely with a parachute. It’s legal, so I should try it right? Not in a million years will I try that; I think it’s insane. But just because I and many others think jumping out of planes is insane, is it not enough reason to make it criminal to those that wish to try it. If jumping out of planes suddenly becomes illegal, we would see a huge increase in deaths in the black market skydiving flights due to unregulated safety measures. The drugs themselves do not cause violence and only a small increase in usage would be seen in the legalization of drugs.
The concern to me is not whether drugs should be legal; the question is what is the best way to legalize certain drugs while protecting the safety of average citizens. They answer is slow decriminalization and regulation. Simply putting pen to paper and making all drugs legal would create chaos, mostly with the underground sellers, but certainly it would create panic in the communities and technically with other legal mind-altering substances, regulation seems to work the best. Alcohol has many regulations: the legal age to drink is 21, citizens cannot drive while drunk, cannot be in public places while intoxicated and cannot operate heavy machinery, to name a few. To sell alcohol, a business must apply, meet certain preconditions and obtain a license. Prescription drugs have similar regulations and so do cigarettes. The initial goal is not to create local drug stores, but simply to reduce the number of arrests for possession, saving billion of dollars in overhead processing. This money can go back to citizens or used by the police departments in fighting the violent sellers and kingpins of the drug culture. Regulation is the key to success in providing safe alternatives to the, expensive, threatening, and absolutely corrupted system currently in use.
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