{"id":12196,"date":"2016-07-13T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T16:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12196"},"modified":"2016-07-26T09:32:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T16:32:42","slug":"open-space-arresting-addicts-not-helpful-for-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/07\/13\/open-space-arresting-addicts-not-helpful-for-anyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Arresting addicts not helpful for anyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not saying that students should be snorting coke off desks in the middle of class or shooting up in the bathroom of Fisher, but heroin, cocaine, and other illicit drugs absolutely need to be decriminalized.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a no-brainer. Portugal, for example, has seen drug-related deaths drop from around 400 a year to around 290 since decriminalization in 2001. Rates of HIV infections linked to drug use there went from around 1,400 in 2000 to around 400 in 2006.<\/p>\n

Treating addicts like criminals for something that is defined by the World Health Organization as a mental disorder is total bullshit. Imagine if someone arrested you because you were depressed and told you that you better damn well start feeling better. Imagine if someone told you eating was now illegal.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our July 13, 2016 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That seems outrageous, but, for a drug addict, the idea of living a life without drugs seems just as outrageous as not eating. When you\u2019re truly addicted, the substance becomes a fundamental need just to feel normal. Trust me\u2014I know many people, some of them family, who sought treatment and have been clean ever since, with the help of therapy and weekly support meetings.<\/p>\n

Think jail helps? Drugs are far easier to obtain in jail than they are on Pandora Avenue. I can\u2019t remember the number of times I\u2019ve heard addicts say, \u201cI can\u2019t keep doing this; they\u2019ll catch me.\u201d And, sure enough, they usually do. As one friend who has now embraced recovery told me, \u201cThe sound of a cell door sliding shut never stopped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

With anxiety through the roof over the current state of their lives\u2014the anger from loved ones, the fear of having to break the law just to get through the day\u2014they will keep at it until they have had enough of trying and a treatment plan is laid out in front of them, because people do whatever makes them feel most comfortable when they\u2019re anxious. They retreat to the familiar.<\/p>\n

And for a drug addict, the familiar is the hell of needing what you no longer want.<\/p>\n

Some people argue that if drugs were decriminalized, it would create a free-for-all. What weird world do those people live in? Look around: the masses aren\u2019t stumbling out of the liquor store before work on a Monday morning. Why? Because most of the population doesn\u2019t go into physical withdrawal if they don\u2019t drink.<\/p>\n

If heroin became legal tomorrow, would people think, \u201cYes! Let\u2019s go shoot up and fuck my entire life away\u201d? If people do think that, then they\u2019re probably in need of the same help that many close to me have received.<\/p>\n

Decriminalization doesn\u2019t increase temptation. Those who become addicted through experimentation have genetic, sociological, and psychological predispositions that would land them in treatment \u2014or a coffin\u2014regardless of legal status. The addiction is not in the substance; it\u2019s in the addict\u2019s brain chemistry.<\/p>\n

Plus, there\u2019s the matter of the money that would be saved by not having to jail people because of drugs.<\/p>\n

Society needs to make addiction less dangerous where it can. And the only way to combat that destructive brain chemistry\u2014as my life has shown me time and time again\u2014is by treating those who are addicted with the compassion and understanding they deserve.<\/p>\n

I know it\u2019s hard. But next time you see someone pushing a shopping cart down Pandora, ask yourself how you would want to be treated if you were dying from the covert suicide of active addiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not saying that students should be snorting coke off desks in the middle of class or shooting up in the bathroom of Fisher, but heroin, cocaine, and other illicit drugs absolutely need to be decriminalized. It\u2019s a no-brainer. Portugal, for example, has seen drug-related deaths drop from around 400 a year to around 290 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-july-13-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12198,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12196\/revisions\/12198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}