I recently talked to a person who ran a drug clinic in a small city in upstate New York. She said that heroin and other opiate addictions were epidemic in her community. Almost 80% of high school kids were using heroin or other opiates, as well as a large percentage of other adults. It was “cool” and “in.” He said that treatment didn’t work: there was a very low rate of permanent abstinence. One reason for this was that heroin and other opiates often creates a neurological change in a person’s brain that, in turn, creates a permanent, uncontrollable desire for the drug.
However, even though treatment rarely works, prison or other jail time works even less. It places the addict in a dysfunctional environment where he or she is denigrated and alienated from the society. In this environment, he also gets involved with other addicts and criminals who influence him in a more dysfunctional and illegal lifestyle. If this weren’t enough, the addict often has an irrevocable criminal record attached to his resume that results in not only a stigma, but often a lifelong barrier to more productive and lucrative careers.
A basic contradiction in our whole prison system is that the goal is to rehabilitate “immoral” and “illegal” persons into persons who are law abiding and contributory. However, to do this, our government places the convict into a denigrating and dysfunctional environment, and then places a permanent burden on his back when he gets out.
However, on the other hand (and there is always an “other hand” – which we are calling the “antithesis”), the society needs some way to protect innocent and hardworking people from criminals.
So now we have this problem: we have a very serious drug epidemic and virtually no solution to it.
Here’s where you come in. Let’s all put our minds together and come up with some solutions. Write your solutions to this problem in the “reply” section of this article. Remember, our Nobel Laurite said, “The answers, my friend, are blowin in the wind.” And they are. Let’s just reach up and grab a couple of them.
BUILD THE WALL. Period. It will cut down on the amount of trespassers entering with narcotics and distributing it in New Hampshire.
Marie,
Tx for you continuing contribution to our dialogue — which may save the planet. (Or maybe I’m exaggerating!)
I agree with building the wall — if only for it’s symbolic purpose: US citizens have a right to have only legal immigration — like every other country in the world.
However, the wall may not impact the epidemic of amphetamines. A crackdown on drug smugglers and distributors, as you say, may help a lot. Part of these smugglers come from the neurotic belief of many Progressives and minorities, that anyone from Latin American — because they are people of color — have a right to illegally come to this country and become citizens. They have a right to invade America and set up a drug cartel — like they did in Mexico. Any other immigration policy is racist.
RG
Hi RG,
Just read this article. Well for me I think drug addiction is a physical illness because the drug is literally messing our biological makeup. The crimes that are being made under the influence of these drugs are results of these disruption in our body because of the trigger (which are the drugs). So I think a good place we can probably look into is to take the drug problems as a physical illness so I think rehabilitation (coming from this perspective, meaning a rehab place where people will be treated physically and mentally) is something that we may consider. And not just like what you said, put them in jail cells which we all know is an environment that would probably just mess with their condition more and worsen it.
I’d also like to add that maybe we can build a stronger institution that caters to our mental health. Our mental health and wellness is often brushed off because it wasn’t that “impactful” on our everyday lives, but depression and other kinds is serious and it may be the root cause why heroin addicts (and other kinds of addiction) is coming from. They often find relief and sudden temporary escape from their mental woes that’s why they depend on drugs.
Davina and David,
Thanks for your always thoughtful comments. I think you are right. Obviously jails don’t work. They cost the white sucker up to $30,000 a year and leave the prisoner worse off than when he entered. Instead of instilling a work ethic and a sense of morality and social duty, we render him virtually incapable (because of his record) of getting a meaningful and contributory job. Some return on our investment!!
Scientists did an influential study of rats and heroin. They put a rat in a cage with nothing but two bottles to drink from, one with plain water and another with water spiked with heroin. The rat drank only from the water with heroin and kept drinking until he died.
Then they put rat in a cage that was filled with a rat paradise: other rats, female rats, and all kinds of rat-play things. This rat drank only from the water and engaged in all the rat activities. He wasn’t interested in being spaced out with drugs.
This experiment may be valid for addicts. The key is to lead them to a meaningful and enjoyable lifestyle, and then they may not be even interested in heroin or other addictions. In Scotland and other countries, they give out free, medically supervised heroin, and give the addicts a place to live and job opportunities. The crime rate and the level of addictions have gone down, at a lower cost than jails. Not to mention the long term costs of supporting an ex-con — including his health care — for the rest of his life.
This is one of the reasons for my Guaranteed Employment policy (click Candidacy) and Prison Reform policy. It seems that all groups — rich and poor — could agree that the society should guarantee every citizen a job with at least minimum wage.
Tx again. Let’s continue developing these ideas,
RG
Hi RG,
Wow, that experiment really proves something and proves our point. I just wonder if humans will react the same way as these rats did. (Will rat intelligence prove to be higher than humans?) Kidding aside, I think the reformed jail system that you mentioned and gave as an example would be a good start to developing our own.
Hi RG,
Just like to add that I totally agree with your point. Maybe that’s something we can try? Although I don’t know if we can get to that point, because obviously, the government doesn’t even recognize the problem with our current state..
I agree with you Davina. And maybe we can include more of our mental health in our insurance policies or maybe get free mental health care services from our government.