Drug-Rehab Experiment Begins Sunday in California
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"uy" u...@jh.fg
"The nation's biggest experiment in drug rehabilitation begins on Sunday in California amid warnings from officials in Los Angeles County that they do not have enough money to carry out their part.
Proposition 36, p***ed last fall by the state's voters, will require treatment instead of prison or jail for the estimated 36,000 California nonviolent drug users convicted each year of use or possession for the first or second time. Treatment will range from counseling sessions to a stint at a rehab center." http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread10164.shtml
Ethan Straffin dr...@best.com
I think the first respondent to this thread on the site makes some very relevant points, so I'm including his post below.
At some point, I'm hoping to find the time to transcribe the remarks by Ira Gl***er (former head of the ACLU) about the impropriety of forced treatment, from his address at last month's TLC-DPF conference in New Mexico. As a Californian, I have my fingers crossed. I voted for Prop 36 and hope that it will be as successful as it can be, given what I consider to be basic flaws in its ***umptions, so that we can avoid returning to the incarcerate-everyone mentality that our powerful prison industry has encouraged for far too long. Yet Prop 36 is clearly a stopgap at best, which may make a few people's lives a bit better while we wait for our voters and politicians to catch up with our scientists in their appreciation of the differences between use, abuse, and addiction.
Followups trimmed; eight groups is too many IMHO.
Ethan
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Government-Mandated Treatment We can expect to see a change in thetreatment/rehab industry as a result of government-mandated treatment similar to the trends we have witnessed for years due to federal government-mandated education. While there will be far more jobs for "counselors" in these treatment/rehab facilities, there will be an accompanying decrease in salaries for these jobs. This must happen; they cannot pay current wages for all of the people they will need.
Lower pay will, of course, mean that only a few people will make much money (similar to the current situation in education where teachers make very little, principals make a little better than a living wage, and superintendents get comparatively rich). The result will be a cheapening of this so-called service, the implementation of more patients-as-counselors services (like Straight Inc.), and an epidemic of abuses by "counselors" of drug users forced into treatment similar to that found in nursing and convalescent homes across the country.
Just as America cannot incarcerate drugs out of the culture, neither can the country expect to treat its way out of drugs. This fact remains: drugs are here to stay. It makes sense to provide treatment/counseling to those who want it. Waste occurs, however, when we begin forcing/coercing people into "treatment" by rule of law.
Study after study shows that people are most likely to succeed in treatment if they are motivated to enter treatment on their own. These studies claiming that length of time in treatment is a major factor in success of treatment reveal only this: the longer you have to brainwash people, the more likely they are to become brainwashed. Brainwashing is not treatment. It is involuntary and, as such, a violation of human rights.
If Prop. 36 fails, it will not be due to treatment being inherently ineffectual, nor will it be due to the removal of prison as an "incentive" for people to continue treatment. No, if Prop. 36 fails it will be because the government has continued its draconian policy of forcing individuals to comply with its arbitrary and infantile demands.
A policy of "conform or else" has no place in a free society, and free-thinking people know this.
Dan B
n ...@na.da (redrum)
I say legalize and let the chips fall where they may. I doubt the number of true addicts would rise that much under blanket legalization, and the people who do become addicts would have been casual users to start with.
In article <drumz-3CB000.13455127062...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, dr...@best.com says...
Guinness guinn...@127.0.0.1
It's pretty funny that drug warriors always complain that there isn't enough money for treatment, yet they never mention the billions wasted putting people in jail.
Here's a solution: let's make all drugs legal (just like cigarrettes) and get the government out of the morality business. We won't have to worry about where the money comes from, because the government won't be spending it.
Guinness
d ...@cheetah.net
As a public policy, it is poorly thought out, has too many inherent problems of application, will only re-deploy the same people who screwed up the system in the first place. Along with all this, it will create little fiefdoms of that mystical equation in treatment: Only when the addict says enough, will the addict be able to turn to a new direction, which includes zealot religious practices and beliefs, over compensation that often includes becoming a pain in the *** of others who live rather peaceably, with be seeking another form of a high. And when all the addicts released to the new treatment frontier- old as dirt - they will wreak havoc on the community only to find themselves being pushed aside and/or jailed for crimes. And the cycle repeats.
DCI
"ea_th" ea...@hotCOLDmail.com
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I just posted that this is the exact question the thinking ask whenever big promises of taxpayer supplied "entitlements" are promised. You must be among the thinking.
a ...@spooron.com (Marek Williams)
While I agree with your sentiments regarding Prop 36, there is another benefit to it no one seems to have mentioned.
Prior to Prop 36 the government made money on simple possession convictions. Most people just paid a fine. Few were actually incarcerated. The government did not make a huge amount of money at this, but clearly it was in the government's financial interest to har*** ordinary users.
Prop 36 reverses that dramatically. As one official stated, the government does not have the finances to implement the requirements of Prop 36. Instead of making money on possession charges, it's going to cost the government.
I think this is very significant. To continue har***ing users the government has to get rid of Prop 36. As long as it stands, the war against users is going to wither away. And the voters approved it, so it's unlikely the legislature will try to get around it.
While I agree that forced treatment involves serious constitutional and ethical issues, I think the financial issues are far more important for the future of the pro-legalization cause.
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Don't reply to the e-mail address in the header. It's bogus. But I read the newsgroup every day so post here.
brian_n_mil ...@yahoo.com (Brian N. Miller)
You ***ume that the government's goal is to balance its budget.
Keynesian economics claims that deficit government spending boosts the general economy, and so the government can justify unaffordable programs. For the bureaucrats who horde government offices, lavish programs have the added benefit of monotonically increasing the size and scope of the nanny state. Prop 36 is an attempt to make the nanny state appear more comp***ionate and thus more worthy of popular support. Prop 36 enlarges government while also making government seem more friendly.
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