A London Daily Telegraph article raises an interesting question. Should we change our efforts from a war on drugs to a war on addiction?
Drugs have long been seen as a street battle. We have long been trying to stop the influx of drugs from other countries because the thought was, less drugs, less drug use. Yet addiction continues to rise. Since people are figuring out how to get high off just about anything and prescription drug abuse stats are sky rocketing is it time to shift focus?
Here is the premise of the argument, in a quote from the article:
“The UK Drug Policy Commission recommended that the fight against drugs should focus on dealing with the criminal and anti-social elements that surround their sale. In other words, as long as drug dealers don’t start shooting each other, the police should turn a blind eye to their activities.”
Sure the current drug policies are failing the world, this is not just a problem in the United Kingdom, but does that mean police should not enforce the laws that are on the books? Is sending drug criminals to drug rehab the answer? They do it in Sweden and it seems to work.
The article states:
“In Sweden, they tie successful involvement in such programmes to the expunging of the criminal record. Unlike in Britain, rehabilitation is seen as an integral part of the approach – and, unsurprisingly enough, the number of addicts as a proportion of the population is considerably lower than here.”
So does Sweden have it right? Can a policy like that work in America of the United Kingdom?
Thanks for the blog post.
I think that any program that is designed to raise awareness to the drug culture and how it effects the people directly and indirectly involved is always a good thing. The challenge, which is nearly impossible, is to convice policy makers who might not suffer from drug addiction to understand addiction.