Drug Addicts Should Be Given Treatment Rather Than Sentenced to Jail

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Drug addiction is a very serious, universal and expensive social problem here in the United States. Despite the fact of whether or not substance abuse is a sin, a crime, a bad habit or even an illness, there should be a public policy and/or approaches taken by the government to solve the drug war that is happening all around. Until quite recently, the solution to combat and win the drug war has been to imprison drug addicts. Many people think that imprisoning drug abusers would in a sense clean society out to the extent that there would be less drug sellers roaming around in the streets, etc and that society would be safer since more drug addicts, who are also more inclined to commit crimes would be behind bars. However, the latest research has proven that jail time would actually hinder an addict’s recovery process or even cause it to worsen. Therefore, although imprisoning drug addicts would seem like the easier option for society and the government, there are numerous different reasons why treatment is actually a better solution for the government to engage in if they want to win the drug war once and for all. In the opinions of many, putting drug addicts in prison instead of giving them treatment would make it much easier for society a “cleaner” and “safe” environment to live in. According to Theodore Dalrymple – the author of Junk Medicine: Doctors, Lies and Addiction Bureaucracy, drug addiction should be treated like the criminal activity as it is. The main reason behind this is due to his beliefs that drug addiction was caused by criminality and it does not cause criminal behavior. His experience as a prison doctor provided him with the data that claims drug addicts, mainly heroin addicts who ended up in prison has had long histories of criminality before they were associated with drugs themselves. Hence, from this aspect alone it is very important to

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