[giantg2]

I agree that was not the right approach. I'm not sure this is the right approach either.

Keeping it criminalized, but as a summary offense with the punishment being an educational presentation/course on rehab options might provide some better outcomes. There are some tangentially related things to consider here too, like drug convictions preventing addicts from buying weapons.

[pstuart]

It's a health issue, not a criminal issue. Drug laws cause more crime -- by design.

[giantg2]

How would a summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime?

How is it necessarily a health issue? Not all drug users are addicts.

Edit: And perhaps the most obvious support for it being a criminal issue is that the first time someone does the drug it would only be a criminal issue and could not be a health issue since they had no prior exposure to become addicted.

[nemothekid]

>How is it necessarily a health issue? Not all drug users are addicts.

1. If you are a drug user, not even necessarily an addict (in which your need to consume the drug gets in the way of other life functions), then society is already accepting. Cocaine use, for example, is far less stigmatized in the US and UK.

2. If you step back from your biases and view addiction as a "sickness", then throwing addicts in prison makes as much sense as throwing someone in prison for a broken leg. Sure sometimes it might work, but it's clearly not the most optimal solution. Other countries that have taken this approach have far fewer recidivism rates - which is the metric that should be judged.

Finally to answer your point "summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime" is not at all what happens in the US today. Drug use & possession carries prision term, in which cutting cold turkey (or, likely more commonly sneaking drugs into prison) is the only option. After which, you are likely to lose your job and turn to more crime to make a living once released from prison. A more realistic counter to your point however is that the current American criminal justice system has little flexibility for nuance, and without major police reform, leaving this issue to police simply does not produce the intended results.

[giantg2]

Did you read the first sentence of my original comment? I'm agreeing that the existing system doesn't work. I acknowledge addiction as a sickness and see how the current process fails to address it.

I'm saying that decriminalization isn't the the best option in my opinion either - essentially you have a system ignoring people's drug use rather than offering help. My suggestion was to have a low level summary offense which only punishes the person with education on rehab options. This would require users to recieve information on treatment options that they might otherwise not be aware of. It would also track the offense so that if an addict resorts to crime to pay for their habit, they would not be legally allowed to buy a weapon.

[nemothekid]

>My suggestion was to have a low level summary offense which only punishes the person with education on rehab options.

What I'm saying is you have to consider who would be responsible for such a system? Decriminalization isn't about ignoring the issue, it's about getting these people out of the criminal justice system. What you are advocating for, to be implemented successfully, would require a reform of the entire police force to treat these people as patients instead of criminals. (I'm focusing on America here, in your country the police may be less hostile, especially to drug users.)

The eventual path that is being set, for which decriminalization would be a first step would then to have hospitals/health care provide save alternatives to buying hard drugs/needles on the street, which you can then check them into and begin the rehab process there. Essentially forcing people to rehab under threat of punishment isn't successful, and the American police force has spent the last 40 years treating drug users as criminals. Depending on the justice system isn't likely to work.

[giantg2]

Why would the police need to treat them as patients? When you get a ticket for a traffic violation, they typically (the good ones anyways) educate you on what you did that was unsafe. This is usually just a summary offense with a fine. I'm saying that drug users should get a similar treatment but even without the fine.

[ogre_codes]

> How would a summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime?

I'm not sure if I'm mis-understanding you or if you aren't familiar with the legislation in question. What you suggest here seems an awful lot like a marginally more sever version of what this law does.

[giantg2]

Why is this downvoted?