Helping Addicts Beat Their Addictions

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/15drugs.html?pagewanted=2&hp
To my surprise, I have come to find that the government is finally taking what I feel to be the correct steps towards helping drug addicts get their live back. For a long time, I have always thought that the "War on Drugs," was a completely ridiculous undertaking by the government for a number of reasons. Mainly the fact that the people who are doing these drugs should not just be thrown into jail for their crimes, but sent to a Drug Diversion Courts to give "Arrested addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight and addiction treatment."(Eckholm). I feel this is a very positive step towards the war on drugs because it helps keep hundreds of addicts, who mostly are caught on small time dealing of drugs or stealing from others to support their drug usage, out of jail and into rehabilitation. For the most part, jail does not help addicts and is some times easier for them due to easy access of drugs for inmates. Also, most addicts do not receive a long jail time for their crimes and return on the streets still a drug addict and possibly containing more connections from being in jail. In rehabilitations these addicts are staying out of jail, which saves us more than 1 billion dollars in reduced law enforcement, and the cost for jailing these addicts, while at the same time, helping these people getting over their addictions. Another factor that I also liked from these drugs courts is that the people are not invincible from jail. If they continue to do drug usage and miss therapy/ urine testing, they are handcuffed and sent to jail until their situation has been decided. It’s refreshing to see that the government is taking positive steps to helping addicts quit doing drugs rather than just arresting them, sending them to jail and not helping them quit their drug usage. The only problem I have is how very few people are being sent to drug courts throughout the country, how there is a waiting list almost to be able to be in the drug court rehabilitation programs. I feel more money should go to help increase these courts budgets to help work with more people and make a big dent in the prison populations.