[mrborgen]

Actually, they do focus on this from time to time, busting a lot of dealers and drug addicts. This normally happens when the area they dealers/addicts occupy becomes too annoying for the public.

However, it doesn't solve anything. It just spreads the drug addicts and dealers around the city for a while, making drugs available everywhere instead of just around the "junkie area".

And then when the police stops busting people, a new "junkie area" appears.

Until it all repeats again..

[3838]

part of how that was tackled in holland was that if an addict was arrested they were offered a choice between being charged or going into treatment - and they may have also been banned from the junkie area (normally people are arrested if they violate this kind of ban)

[mrborgen]

That sounds like a very good practice. Much better than here. However, there aren't enough political will to do something like that here.. The bars for getting into treatment, especially with "replacement drugs" are way to high.