Alun Buffry' Blog: Drug Addiction is a problem for doctors not police...: Addiction to anything is a serious health problem, yet so many people are addicted or habitualised to so many things, from shopping and gambling through heroin and prescribed medication like methodone.
What they started on is not the issue - helping them to cope or overcome the addiction is a medical issue.
The problem is that the law unfairly and unjustly threatens to punish
people addiction to some things / substances, but not others - even
though they have not actually harmed anyone or committed other offences
(if they have, then the law will deal with them)
For example: a heroin addict can be sent to prison or fined for simple
possession for own use - an alcoholic can not be. Why - if neither has
done harm, surely they ought to be treated the same way and offered
help, not courtrooms.
That threat of arrest is why so many addicts to drugs which are illegal
to possess, where the only supply is criminalised, must feel deterred
from seeking help earlier before all the other problems and associated
crime become part of their lives too.
It is time the Government tried a new approach other than prohibition
that is clearly failing and also brings its own problems (like £18
Billion bill annually to the taxpayers".
It is time the Government treated users of all drugs, the same. There
is no logical reason why some drugs should be totally banned yet
available on the street, whereas others that are equally or more
dangerous like alcohol is controlled.
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